ABB Inaugurates New Azipod Manufacturing Base in Shanghai
Azipod improves vessels’ fuel efficiency up to 25%, lowers their environmental impact and provides better maneuvering capabilities. ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, today inaugurated a new global manufacturing base in Shanghai featuring Azipod C, the company’s advanced green marine propulsion system. Located in the Lingang New Development Zone, the new base covers 37,000 square meters with an annual output of 60 units at present. Claudio Facchin, Chairman and President of ABB North Asia and China, spoke at the inauguration ceremony. “Today’s launch in Shanghai supports ABB’s ‘in China for China and the world’ strategy and the city’s goal to turn Shanghai into a global center of the world’s shipping industry.
Lube Oils on Test
Modern tools of research take many, increasingly high-technology forms, but large test machinery is especially apposite to the marine field, with its blend of applied science and solid, practical disciplines. Lubmarine has ploughed $2-million into a new, purpose-built test engine in France. Derived from a five-cylinder medium-speed diesel of the MAN B&W 16/24 type, the Innovator-4C evaluation and research engine is due to be brought into service this month (May) at the TotalFinaElf Research Center (CRES) at Solaize, near Lyons. It will replace the single-cylinder, Elf-Optimizer test bench, based on a Pielstick PC2.6 engine, first installed at Solaize 20 years ago and extensively modified in 1994 in response to changing development requirements.
