Baleària plans to build in Spain the first two high-speed boats with liquefied natural gas (LNG) engine, with an investment of more than one hundred million euros each, replacing the megaferri commissioned to La Naval by 175 million and ended up canceling due to the inability of the Basque shipyard, in bankruptcy, to meet the terms of the order.
This was announced by the president of the shipping company, Adolfo Utor, in the “Annual Paco Pons Comunitat Valenciana 2022 Conference”.
For Utor, the competitiveness goes through the bet for the liquefied natural gas that he undertook seven years ago, when nobody believed in that cleaner and cheaper energy, and to which competitors like MSC or Royal Caribbean are added today.
Baleària is converting the engines of five ships, from fuel to gas, and next year it will receive another two gas ferries, which it commissioned from a Venetian shipyard. After canceling the order to La Naval, it works with an Australian engineering and the Valencian Cotenaval in a two or three year project to build two high-speed boats powered by LNG engines manufactured in northern Europe.