On January 1, CIMC Raffles formally delivered BLUE HERITAGE, a 7,000 CEU dual-fuel Ro-Ro vessel, at Longkou Base. This vessel is the first Ro-Ro ship built and delivered by CIMC Raffles this year.
It is understood that CIMC Raffles began to deploy the ro-ro vessel business as early as 2016, and established the first domestic professional thin plate flat production line for laser composite welding of ships at the Longkou base.
In recent years, CIMC Raffles has signed a number of car carriers with European shipowners such as Wallenius Lines of Sweden and Zodiac Group of Monaco. Nowadays, Longkou base has jumped into one of the mainstream car carriers construction bases in the world. In recent years, CIMC Raffles has signed a number of PCTCs (pure car and track carrier) with European shipowners such as Wallenius Lines of Sweden and Zodiac Group of Monaco. Nowadays, Longkou base has become one of the mainstream PCTCs construction bases in the world.
The first vessel of CIMC Raffles’ 7,000 CEU series of PCTCs, BYD’s “EXPLORER NO.1”, was long chartered to BYD by the ship owner as the first vessel of BYD’s “sea-going fleet”. The vessel made its maiden voyage on January 16, 2024, and successfully loaded 5,449 units of BYD’s new energy vehicles from Shenzhen to Europe.
The second vessel of BYD’s “sea-going fleet”, Changzhou, also a 7,000 CEU PCTC, was delivered in Longkou, Shandong Province on November 29, 2024, with a maximum range of 15,800 nautical miles.
At present, CIMC Raffles has sufficient handheld orders for PCTCs. In2024, the shipbuilder delivered seven PCTCs. Together with the newly delivered one, among this batch of eight newly built vessels, six are of 7,000 CEU capacity and two of 6,500 CEU capacity, all of them are LNG dual-fuel-powered, which meet the global green and low-carbon standards, and are leased by European shipowners to domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers, in order to support the internationalization process of China’s automobiles. At present, these vessels built by CIMC are mainly long term leased to BYD, SAIC and Ford etc., which are famous domestic and foreign automobile enterprises.