The name ceremony of the newbuilding Liselotte Essberger took place in Hamburg in December 2023.
She is the first of a series of four chemical tankers built in China for the Hamburg-based shipowner John T. Essberger.
The godmother of the new ship is Mrs Greet Verheyden, Logistics Manager of Borealis, a major manufacturer of plastics and long-standing customer of the Essberger shipping company.
The ship was built at the China Merchants Jinling Shipyard (Yangzhou) Dingheng Co Ltd on the Yangtze River.
Liselotte Essberger is the fifth tanker in the Essberger fleet bearing that name. Liselotte von Rantzau-Essberger (1918-1993) was the daughter of company founder John T. Essberger and she was on the helm of the well-known shipping company for 30 years.
When she started the business in the 1960s a female company manager was an exception.
The first voyage of Liselotte Essberger took her from a loading port in northern China via Singapore, the Suez Canal through the Mediterranean northwards to Hamina in Finland before coming to Hamburg for the christening ceremony, which was attended by 250 persons.
‘This was by far the longest maiden voyage of a newbuild from our company ever’, Eberhart von Rantzau stated in his welcome speech.
Liselotte Essberger is an ice-going (1A) chemical tanker with 16 stainless steel tanks, 116.6m in overall length, 18m beam and a fully laden draught of 9.2m.
She is driven by a MAN dual-fuel engine which can be fuelled by marine gas oil (diesel) or LNG as required. The maiden voyage was travelled in the majority in LNG mode.
John T. Essberger operates presently 32 modern chemical tankers and two containerships.
The chemical tankers are employed in a tanker pool together with the Norwegian company Stolt-Nielsen under the name E&S Tankers. All these tankers are busy in North Europe and in the Mediterranean.
