ST Marine Keel Lays Singapore's First Roll-On/Roll-Off Passenger Ferry |  | | | 02 September 2008 | | Source: ST Marine | Singapore Technologies Marine Ltd (ST Marine) today laid the keel for Singapore's first Roll-on/Roll-off passenger ferry (Ropax) at its main yard in Benoi. The contract worth approximately $168m to design and build the Ropax for the French trading and shipping company, Louis Dreyfus Armateurs S.A.S (LDA), was announced in July last year.
The keel forms the backbone of a ship, hence even in today's modern hull construction, the laying of the keel is celebrated as a significant milestone as it marks the beginning of the ship's construction. The 4,900 dwt Ropax, measuring 161m long and 25.6m wide was originally targeted to carry 930 passengers to operate in the English Channel for day and night crossing, but it will now be built to carry 1300 passengers after LDA's additional requirement and injection of $5m. Equipped with passenger lounges and cabins, restaurants and bars, and a summer deck, the passenger vessel has also been designed to carry both trailers and cars, with a Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) lane capacity of about 1,500m and car lane capacity of about 2,290m.
The Ropax is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2010 to increase LDA's fleet of Ropax ferry to five, all trading in the English Channel. The keel laying of the Ropax follows the successful launch of the second RoRo vessel which was built to transport Airbus A380 aircraft components, just two days ago on 31 August.
"ST Marine is very proud and honoured today to be inked in Singapore's shipbuilding history to build its first Ropax. We are thankful to our customer, LDA, the French leader in the RoRo freight and passenger market for giving us the opportunity to create history and entrusting us with this new Ropax. We look forward to strengthening our partnership for many more years to come." ~ CHANG Cheow Teck, President, ST Marine
LDA is a subsidiary of the Louis Dreyfus (LD) Group, a trading and shipping family-owned French company established 152 years ago. LD Group now employs more than 12,000 people in 40 countries and generates a turnover of US$20 billion. LDA is a worldwide praised specialist of bulk transportation and logistics. With a 30 bulkers fleet and modern logistics assets (floating cranes, barges and tugs), LDA offers a wide variety of services to all its customers in the bulk logistics supply chain. LDA has also partnered important industry specialists in some high value added niches: LNG transport with Gaz de France, submarine cable laying with Alcatel, seismic research with CGG and aircraft components sea transportation with Airbus.
ST Marine, the marine arm of ST Engineering, provides turnkey building, repair and conversion services for a wide spectrum of naval and commercial vessels. In shipbuilding, it has the proven capabilities to provide turnkey solutions from concept definition to detailed design, construction, on-board system installation and integration, testing, commissioning to through-life support. It has also established a track record in providing high engineering content shiprepair and ship conversion services for a worldwide clientele. |
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