By
Rebecca Gibson |
China-based Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry has signed a letter of intent to build a new passenger ferry for Viking Line, due for delivery in spring 2020.
The 63,000gt ferry will accommodate 2,800 people. Powered by LNG fuel, the 218m ferry will serve the route between Turku in Finland, Åland Islands in Finland, and Stockholm in Sweden.
Viking and Xiamen Shipbuilding plan to work with several European companies to build the vessel, including Deltamarin, Wärtsilä and ABB Marine. Viking Line will hire Scandinavian architects for the interior design.
“We have excellent experience with this from Viking Grace, the first large LNG-powered passenger vessel in the world,” said Jan Hanses, Viking Line’s CEO. “Great emphasis has been placed in the planning work on environmentally sound solutions, including new innovative energy-efficient applications. Many years of planning work have gone into this newbuilding project in conjunction with the European Union’s Motorways of the Seas project under the scope of the Connecting Europe Facility funding instrument, which has also included the Port of Turku and the Ports of Stockholm.”
Xiamen Shipbuilding and Viking expect to sign the final €190 million agreement in spring 2017, and the letter of intent also includes an option for an additional ferry.