25% Emissions Reduction Wins Hapag-Lloyd Newbuilds Green Financing

The ships are due for delivery in 2023. Image Credit: Hapag-Lloyd

Six new container ships being built for Hapag-Lloyd will deliver emissions savings of as much as 25%, winning the liner green financing for its order.

The company has secured a syndicated loan of $417 million and lease financing of $472 million for the order, the company said in a statement on its website on Monday. Both transactions meet the green loan principles of the Loan Market Association.

Green financing is a category of lending in which the borrower needs to demonstrate the environmental credentials of its project in order to satisfy the lenders. The lending category is growing, and shipping companies will increasingly need to access it to secure financing for their newbuildings.

Shipping has thus far tended to take a less strict interpretation of the word 'green' than land-based industries. Parts of the industry in the past have sought to label projects like scrubber retrofits that rely on fossil fuels as green investments, when similar land-based projects would be unlikely to win green financing.

Hapag-Lloyd's six new 23,500 TEU boxships will be able to run on LNG as well as conventional bunkers, and are due for delivery in 2023.

"Thanks to their extremely fuel-efficient high-pressure dual-fuel engines, the newbuildings will be able to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 15 to 25 percent," Hapag-Lloyd said in Monday's statement.

"This means that in addition to the requirements of the LMA's Green Loan Principles, the ships will also satisfy the EU Taxonomy's technical screening criteria for sea and coastal freight water transport."