COSCO Heavy Industry Shanghai will have MAN Energy Solutions retrofit four main engines from COSCO Line’s Camellia and Virgo class vessels for methanol operation. These types of vessels have a capacity of 13,800 and 20,000 TEU respectively. The contract includes an option for nine more vessels.
Currently equipped with single-fuel MAN B&W 11S90ME-C10.5 engines, the vessels will be retrofitted to dual-fuel MAN B&W 11S90ME-LGIM10.5 units capable of operating on fuel oil or methanol, in the process becoming the first vessels in COSCO’s fleet to sail on methanol.
The option included in the contract involves nine vessels from the line’s 20,000 TEU Virgo and Pisces classes. COSCO Heavy Industry Shanghai will act as complete turnkey solution provider for the COSCO Line retrofits.
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Solution package
MAN Energy Solutions will provide a solution package comprising engineering, parts, project management, onsite technical assistance at the yard, sea-trial assistance and recertification service for the engine retrofits. To this end, the company has undertaken an R&D programme and invested in a testbed to develop the S90-LGIM (Liquid Gas Injection Methanol) retrofit solution.
The first vessel of the series is scheduled for retrofit in Q2 2025 when these vessels will also become the first fitted with S90-LGIM engines to sail the world’s oceans.
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Maersk retrofits
The new order follows on the heels of the recent methanol retrofit order by A.P. Moller–Maersk, for the retrofit of the G95 main engines aboard eleven of its container vessels to dual-fuel. More than 300 vessels globally are currently equipped with S90 engines and MAN Energy Solutions expects this new business to kick off a major wave of S90 retrofits.
‘Our retrofit solutions are now accepted as a proven way of attaining dual-fuel capability to deliver lower emissions, and COSCO’s methanol retrofits are yet another instance of this,’ says Michael Petersen, Senior Vice President and Head of PrimeServ Denmark. ‘We are in the early days of a huge wave of dual-fuel retrofits and see many concrete projects coming online with the capacity to meet shipping’s demand for green fuels, such as e-methanol and bioLNG. We expect that owners who have opted to wait and watch over the past few years will ultimately also convert their tonnage to dual-fuel.’
PrimeServ China is currently gearing up its market presence so as to be capable of servicing large retrofit projects at multiple yards simultaneously.
Picture: COSCO Shipping Virgo, a Virgo class vessel in the COSCO Line fleet (courtesy COSCO Line as supplied by MAN Energy Solutions).
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