That makes 16 ships in ten years: CLdN, the shipping company belonging to the Cobelfret Group, has once again signed contracts for newbuilds. The RoRo freighters are to be fitted with an additional deck.
Two vessels with a capacity of 6,700 loading metres are being built in Korea by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, CLdN has now announced. Construction is scheduled to begin in “early 2028”, with delivery due in “mid-2029”.
The shipping company and the shipyard are already long-standing partners when it comes to expanding the fleet: these are newbuilds 15 and 16, which CLdN has ordered from the South Korean shipyard over the past ten years.
According to the shipping company, compared with the existing 5,000-metre-load class, the vessels now contracted feature an additional deck as well as more deck space and are specifically configured for the transport of trailers. “By expanding the CLdN fleet with these vessels, customers will benefit from an even wider range of transport options within the company’s extensive ro-ro and container ship network,” says the shipping company, which has recently attracted attention with a number of moves in the container shipping sector. The most recent example was the takeover of the container operations of the shipping company Samskip on routes to and from the UK.
CLdN: “The world’s most fuel-efficient RoRo vessels”
The new vessels will be fitted with a dual-fuel propulsion system that enables operation using both conventional marine diesel and LNG. Furthermore, the design already allows for the subsequent retrofitting of larger electric shaft generators and batteries, “as soon as the relevant technology has matured further”. Whilst fuel consumption per vessel is expected to be on a par with that of CLdN’s existing 5,000-metre-load-class vessels, the higher loading capacity is said to ensure 30 to 40% better fuel efficiency per tonne-kilometre transported.
It continues: “This will make these vessels among the world’s most fuel-efficient RoRo ships.” Each vessel will also be fitted with wide ramps designed to provide direct access to the upper decks. The aim is to speed up and optimise loading and unloading operations – a design decision intended to reduce port lay-up times and support the high-frequency short-sea schedules.
For the short-sea shipping line CLdN, part of the Cobelfret Group, the Samskip deal significantly expanded its route network. Just at the start of the year, the company had launched a new scheduled service between Rotterdam and the Portuguese port of Leixões. The joint deployment of container and RoRo vessels on such long routes was announced by CLdN in 2024 as a ‘strategic plan’.
The shipping company had actually been focused primarily on RoRo services. For some time now, however, increasing attention has been paid to container shipping. It has even launched its own series of newbuild vessels. Founded in 1929, the shipping company operates short sea services between the European mainland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Iberian Peninsula and Scandinavia, with a fleet of 30 vessels and more than 200 sailings per week. The RoRo vessels are primarily used to transport vehicles, as well as heavy-lift and MPP cargo. However, new-build RoRo vessels are also joining the fleet.
“We are delighted to be expanding our partnership with HD Hyundai Heavy Industries for the construction of these two new vessels. The vessels will increase the capacity of our existing fleet and offer us even greater flexibility to meet our customers’ requirements. Thanks to their fuel efficiency, CLdN will further consolidate its position as the operator with the lowest carbon footprint compared to all RoRo competitors,” said Florent Maes, CEO of CLdN.
