Following the renovation of ACL’s fleet, new orders for Finnlines and Grimaldi Euromed’s short sea routes and the new car carriers deployed on the Europe – North America trade transporting new vehicles for FCA, the Naples-based Grimaldi Group is now thinking about its next stage of investments.
“We have started working on two new projects of ships, both multipurpose and ropax units,” announced Emanuele Grimaldi, CEO of the company, at the annual Euromed Convention organised in Athens this year. “The investment will exceed $1bn for sure and the orders are expected to be signed in two years’ time,” he added.
His brother Gianluca, co-CEO of the group and in charge for the deepsea shipping market, gave more details, telling Splash: “The mentioned multipurpose new ships set to be ordered in the next few years will be conro, probably six units, and will replace the 20-years old vessels currently deployed on the maritime services linking Europe to West Africa and South America. Our aim would be to replace the older tonnage before 2025.”
Gianluca Grimaldi further explained that the new project will be an evolution of the last G4 units delivered by Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in South Korea four years ago, but added the new ones are likely to be built in China where he claimed quality was improving and prices were 20% less.
Compared with the G4 class (1,000 teu plus 3,000 cars plus 3,000 lane metres), the new project will have 20% more cargo capacity and be even more efficient in terms of fuel consumption.
