Swedish tanker shipping company Concordia Maritime has launched a technical design study on the conversion of a tanker to a container vessel.
The study is being conducted together with Stena Teknik — a technical resource for Stena’s marine-related business areas — and a German consulting company specialising in ship design.
As explained, the aim is to investigate the feasibility of converting and adapting a P-MAX vessel for container transportation. The assignment also includes preparation for “basic design” class approval.
According to initial assessments, the P-MAX vessels’ two engines, with full redundancy, and other dimensions make them possible to convert to container vessels with a capacity of approximately 2,100 TEU.
“It should be stressed that there are a number of technical and market challenges to convert and adapt P-MAX tankers to container ships and there is therefore a risk that the study will lead to that the project will not be concluded,” Concordia Maritime said.
The technical design study is expected to be completed by the end of Q2 2022 and – if the result is positive – it will be followed by discussions with shipyards and possible charterers to explore potential interest.
The full conversion is expected to take approximately 3–5 months.
Concordia Maritime owns a total of nine P-MAX vessels.
Over the past few months, Concordia Maritime has been experiencing difficulties posed by the continued weak tanker market on a global scale.
On the other hand, there has been an unprecedented demand for containerships leading to record freight rates on all container trade routes.
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