Quebec City-headquartered shipper Desgagnés christened and inaugurated its two polar class duel fuel/LNG petroleum/chemical tankers, the Paul A. Desgagnés and the Rossi A. Desgagnés.
These additions to the Desgagnés fleet represent the completion of an investment plan, worth more than $200 million and launched in 2015, for the construction and commissioning of four new vessels.
The twin new-generation ships are the result of an original concept developed by Desgagnés to optimize characteristics related to safety, environmental performance and operational efficiency, as well as to adapt to the navigational conditions of northern Quebec and the Great Lakes regions.
Each vessel represents an investment of $50 million, of which close to $9 million for each ship was solely for the purpose of adding a dual fuel/LNG engine.
With a deadweight of almost 15,000 tonnes and tanks with a capacity of more than 17,000 cubic meters, the vessels are suitable for transporting refined petroleum or chemical products. They were built at the Besiktas shipyard in Turkey.
Previous ships in the series, the Damia Desgagnés, the world’s first dual fuel asphalt plant, and the Mia Desgagnés, the world’s first dual fuel polar-class petroleum-chemical tanker and sister ship to the two inaugurated today, were christened at the Port of Montreal in 2017 and 2018.