Japanese shipping company “K” Line sent the first of two new lng dual-fuel car carriers on maiden call past Zeebrugge. The ‘Odin Highway’ was handled by ICO this week, with the ‘Thor Highway’ coming into service later this quarter.
This week, International Car Operators (ICO) received the ‘Odin Highway’ at the Zuidelijk Insteekdok in Zeebrugge. This is the first of two new lng dual-fuel car carriers in the fleet of Japanese shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd (“K” LINE). The ‘Odin Highway’ arrived in Zeebrugge via Spain’s Sagunto (near Valencia on the Mediterranean) and England’s Bristol on Friday 5 April. On Wednesday 10 April, the ship left for Durban in South Africa.
Sister ship ‘Thor Highway’ will be launched before the summer. Both are 199.90 metres long and can carry 7,000 passenger cars. They will be leased to “K” Line for 10 years by SFL Shipping. That New York-listed Bermuda-based shipping group owns and operates a diverse fleet of 73 tankers, container, bulk and ro-ro vessels and a number of power facilities.
‘Fremantle Highway’
Of the approach of the ‘Odin Highway’ in Sagunto, “K” Line shared on Linkedin a beautiful drone film shot by Gunnar Klensang, manager of Vessel Operations and Stowage Planning at “K” Line in Germany.
SFL Shipping’s two new car carriers come for “K” Line partly as a capacity increase and partly as a replacement for the ‘Fremantle Highway’, which was rendered unserviceable by a severe fire in the summer of 2023. The hull of the ship remained in pretty good shape and would go to China for repairs later this year, according to latest reports from at salvage yard Koole in Rotterdam.
Bulk carriers on ammonia
“K” Line also announced today that it reached an agreement in principle with several partners to have future bulk carriers powered by engines running on ammonia. The vessels in question are 200,000 tonnes (DWT) vessels that will be built by Nihon Shipyard and equipped with engines from MAN.
A key party in this memorandum of understanding (MOU) is ITOCHU Corporation, one of Japan’s largest trading groups. Its more than 100,000 employees are engaged in international activities in textiles, machinery, metals, minerals, energy, chemicals, food and IT, among others.
