The MPP shipping company AAL Shipping, which belongs to the Heinrich Schoeller group of companies, is continuing to modernize its fleet: one newbuilding has been christened and two more have been ordered.
The “AAL Newcastle” has now been officially named at the CSSC Huangpu Wenchong shipyard in China. She is the seventh newbuild in a series of ships in the so-called Super B class, of which AAL has successively ordered eight units in recent years.
AAL took the opportunity of the christening to announce a further investment: Two more of the 32,000-ton trucks are to join the carrier’s fleet from the beginning of 2028. The newbuild orders for “AAL Tianjin” and “AAL Miami” have been signed. The “AAL Mumbai” is due to be delivered in June of this year.
Shipping company CEO Kyriacos Panayides called the delivery of the “AAL Newcastle” and her sisters a “significant milestone for AAL”. The ships “AAL Newcastle” and “AAL Mumbai”, which are specially designed for heavy lift and complex project cargoes, feature a number of significant technical improvements designed to increase lifting capacity and flexibility in cargo handling, according to official information. One of the most important innovations is the larger crane capacity, which has been increased from 350 to 400 tons per crane.
The newbuildings are a central component of AAL’s strategy. The shipping company – ranked third or fourth in the global market by transport capacity, depending on the calculation – is focusing on relatively large vessels. The Heavylifters will be 179.9 m long, 30 m wide and have a ballast draught of 6.5 m, with each vessel capable of carrying up to 80,000 tons of general cargo. The weather deck will provide 4,500 square meters of open cargo space, with extendable pontoons on the starboard side of the vessel to further increase storage space on deck.
“As cargo requirements evolve, particularly in the offshore wind energy sector, our fleet must also evolve,” commented Yahaya Sanusi, Deputy Head of AAL’s Engineering Department. “The vessel’s increased combined lifting capacity of 800 tons opens up possibilities that were previously outside the fleet. Longer tower segments can now be safely lifted in a single operation to speed up loading and unloading operations.”
In addition to the increased crane capacity of 400 t, AAL has made further design optimizations to the four new vessels to enable faster cargo handling operations and optimize deck utilization. The vessels feature a new 26m long lifting beam – an improvement on the 20m beams of previous vessels. “Additional improvements to the main and auxiliary hooks provide approximately one meter more reach, extend the lifting range and improve the handling of oversized project cargoes,” it continues.
