A growing global focus on the low carbon economy has sparked greater awareness of the low-carbon trend among shipbuilders. Recently various international maritime conventions and standards, such as the convention on greenhouse gas emissions, PSPC and Ballast Water Management, have been issued that greatly impact the global shipbuilding industry. Many shipbuilding companies are investigating new approaches to reducing fuel consumption, carbon emissions and operating costs, to enhance safety and achieve environmentally neutral operation while maintaining ship speed and increasing load capacity. To meet this objective, Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group recently proposed a new Load-to-Value (LTV) concept, a load efficiency factor that indicates such trend in the shipbuilding industry.
In economics, there is an indicator “Loan-to-Value” for loan risk assessment and control. In the shipbuilding industry, “Load-to-Value” has nothing to do with risk assessment, but it indicates the relationship between load capacity, fuel consumption, price, emissions and the operating costs of ships. This indicator plays a significant role in comparing load efficiency of different kinds of ships.
“While implementing our recent projects, we found that the LTV indicator corresponds to the expectations of a growing number of clients and is being integrated into their selection criteria for deciding on ship purchases. More factors related to fuel consumption and emissions will be taken into considerations as the shipbuilding sector marches forward to low-carbon innovation,” said Simon Liang, CEO of Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group.
Crown 63, a new type of bulk carrier designed and built by Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group, embodies the perfect application of the LTV concept in shipbuilding. Crown 63 is the world’s new generation of Supramax bulk carrier. Compared with existing 58,000-ton Supramax bulk carriers, Crown 63 delivers a 9% increase in load capacity and 13% saving in fuel consumption, and is capable of remaining the same speed, thereby delivering maximum loads with minimum fuel consumption. Crown 63 shows its reduced emissions and environmentally-benign nature by having received BV’s Green Passport and fulfilling the requirements of the latest rules and regulations from IMO, such as PSPC, Ballast Water Management, and the revised MARPOL 73/78 for Nox emissions and the EU SOx control. These advantages of the Crown 63 are reflected in the comprehensive LTV (Load-to-Value) assessment. Therefore, LTV is rapidly gaining recognition as a powerful indicator to measure the load efficiency of ships.
Sinopacific Shipbuilding Group has finished the detailed design for Crown 63, a ship designed and made in China, and has already 16 vessels on order. The first Crown 63 is expected to start steel cutting in March 2011. It will be launched by the end of 2011, and delivery is scheduled for the first quarter of 2012.