Full speed ahead across the world’s oceans

All of NYK Line’s new ship series – 20 “Pure Car and Truck Carriers” are planned by 2028 – will be fuelled by LNG. With the goal of meeting its customers’ demands for more environmentally friendly logistics, NYK, a long-standing Liebherr partner, offers its customers the greenest possible transport chain.

“We had revised the delivery schedule for our LR 1700-1.0 at short notice,” recalls dispatch employee Anja Rupp. “Together with an LR 12500-1.0, bound for Denzai Engineering Ltd Co, the 700-tonne crane needed to be shipped to South Korea in July.” No sooner said than done! The shipment was planned together with Matthias Auch, a project manager at NYK Line’s German office in Hamburg, where long-distance freight and transport planning is all in a day’s work.

NYK’s RoRo fleet consists of 122 ships. It is a well-established young fleet, with eight brand new vessels all running on liquid natural gas (LNG). “Whether in the crane industry or shipping – we’re also future-proofing our range of services. With our LNG hybrid ships, we now have the world’s greenest freighters in our fleet, based on the latest engineering standards,” reports Matthias Auch. It was on one of these vessels – the “Sumire Leader”, or “Violet Leader” in English – that the two crawler cranes were transported to their destinations.

Before the LR 1700-1.0 reached its buyer, Hanchang Heavy Equipment Co. – one of South Korea’s largest crane companies – and completed its first lift at the Taebaek Changjuk wind farm east of Seoul, it spent approximately six weeks in transit aboard the Sumire Leader. During this time, the ship made stops at various ports; before arriving in Bremerhaven, it refuelled in Zeebrugge, Belgium. This single LNG refill allowed the vessel to travel as far as the west coast of the United States. “The route is largely determined by two factors: firstly, the automotive industry, which accounts for the majority of our cargo. The second is the infrastructure – there are currently only a few suitable ports where we can refuel with LNG,” explains Matthias Auch. In addition to Zeebrugge and Port Hueneme in California, these are Singapore and two ports on the Japanese mainland.

After the stop in the United States, the Sumire Leader sailed directly to South Korea. In Masan, the LR 1700-1.0 and the LR 12500-1.0 were unloaded – right on schedule! The next leg of the freighter’s voyage then began without delay: it was loaded with new vehicles in China and Japan before heading back to Europe.

The many years of trustful co-operation between Liebherr and NYK Line speak for themselves. “Beyond this, both companies share the goal of promoting new technologies for our customers and partners to enable a greener future for generations to come,” says Matthias Auch. For the past two and a half years, all of the shipping companyʼs new-build series have been LNG ships. “This puts us on the right path for the next ten to twenty years. There’s also ongoing research into ammonia as a potential fuel, which could be even more environmentally friendly. We’ll see what the future holds.”

Global maritime freight traffic is steadily increasing – the global merchant fleet currently consists of around 93,000 ships, transporting over nine billion tonnes of goods every year. However, this growth also contributes to increasing greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. The environmental advantage of LNG is clear: using gas as a maritime fuel reduces nitrogen oxides by up to 85 per cent and generates 20 per cent less CO₂ than marine diesel. Particulate matter emissions are also reduced by around 95 per cent.

This article was published in the UpLoad magazine 01 | 2025.