Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SAS of France has become the first shipowner to order the new B.delta37 standard bulk carrier design drawn up by Finland’s Deltamarin. Four of the 180m by 30m Handymax vessels are to be built by China’s Tianjin Xingang Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co Ltd.
The ships will have five cargo holds of about 50,000m3 total capacity served by four deck cranes, while vessel deadweight will be about 40,000 metric tonnes at scantling draught. The service speed at design draught will be around 14 knots.
In developing the B.delta37 series, Deltamarin looked at improved cubic capacity coupled with extremely low fuel consumption compared to other available designs. A model tested at the HSVA Model basin in Hamburg suggested a daily fuel oil consumption at design draught of only about 18 tonnes, while the annual output of CO2 is expected to be reduced by about 5,000 tonnes annually.
