MAN Diesel has won an order to supply eight of the most powerful engine to date – the 14K98ME-C7.
The order comes from APL and is for the new container ships this Singapore-based shipping line is going to have built by Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Ship and Marine Engineering, both in Korea.
The engines will be built on licence from MAN and will have a rated output of 115,000 hp. These giant engines will be 29 metres high and weigh more than 2,200 metric tons and are listed as being environmentally friendly. To discuss the trends in orders for large to huge ship engines, we are at the MAN Diesel headquarters for ship engines in Copenhagen, Denmark, talking to Ole Grøne, Senior Vice President in charge of Sales and Promotion, Marine Slow Speed.
“There are some typical trends in the container ship market and they can be summarised in a few words – larger and with as much energy efficiency as you can build into an engine. We have an order book for container ships which is basically at a record high, meaning that capacity-wise we are more or less sold out until 2011. MAN Diesel is organised through licensing agreements with manufacturers around the globe – we do the product development work and manufacture high-tech parts only,” says Grøne.
As regards the need for speed in the container trade, it varies according to the size of the vessel. For ships in the size range up to 1,500 teu, the speed is typically between 15–19 knots. This is valid for abt 60 per cent of the vessels. The most popular speed for 1,500 to 2,500 teu ships is 18–21 knots, which applies to 70 per cent of these ships. In the 2,500 to 4,000 teu range, 90 per cent of the ships have a speed of 20–24 knots. 70 per cent of the 4,000 to 6,000 teu ships have speeds of 23–25 knots. Finally, 80 per cent of the ships that are larger than 6,000 teu have a speed of 24–26 knots. For the ultra large container ships, a ship speed of 25–26 knots can be expected, while a higher ship speed would involve a disproportionately high fuel consumption. Lately the development of the fuel prices will most likely push all speed brackets somewhat down.
Looking a little into future container shipping developments, MAN Diesel believes that new product groups will be transported by container, one example being cars. Some car manufacturers have already containerised the transport of new luxury cars, and others are testing the potential for transporting up to four family cars in a 45-foot container.
“What we experience is that many new container ships have a larger engine installed than the size the ship really needs. This means that a ship can keep up speed without running the engine at more than say 80 per cent of the total power output, thus running more economically. Still, the speed potential is there, the resource is available if needed to, for instance, catch up on the schedule. Another trend we see is the move towards electronically controlled engines, and the advantage of these is that it is easier to optimise the running of the engine. This can be done through changing the parameters of the engine itself, so today about 20 per cent of all new engine orders are for electronically controlled engines.
“What else does the future hold? We will soon see a requirement for first a 15 per cent and later an 80 per cent reduction in NOx emissions as well as severe restrictions of SOx emissions and a strong with to reduce CO2 emissions as well. The answer to that will be to use LNG to run ship engines – that is together with exhaust gas recirculation and scavenge air moistening a technically fully viable solution,” says Grøne.
MAN Diesel’s engine expertise is very impressive and we cannot highlight all the solutions from this company’s trendsetting ship engine departments within the framework of this Container Ship Update. However, MAN Diesel has issued many publications that will make the heart of any naval architect or engineer beat faster. These include ‘Containers, Propulsion Trends in Container Vessels’ and ‘Thermo Efficiency Systems for the Reduction of Fuel Consumption and CO2 Emissions”. Or alternatively, take a look at www.manbw.com.