The world's biggest ore carrier manufactured in China leaves port, Sept. 19, 2017. (Photo provided to CGTN)
The world's biggest ore carrier manufactured in China left port on Tuesday.
Construction started last October. The new-generation vessel has an all-around upgrade, with greener, more environmentally-friendly, energy-saving features.
Compared with the last generation, it has reduced the fuel consumption by 18.8 percent. The transportation cost of unit-weight iron ore has been decreased by 30 percent from the 200,000-ton vessels, and the latest monitoring system is capable of forecasting and alerting on threats from both the internal and external environment.
The 400,000-ton ore carrier (VLOC) is 362 meters long, with a width of 65 meters, a depth of 30.4 meters and a designed draft of 23 meters. Its deck area is as large as three standard football fields. With a speed of 14.5 knots, it can handle a cruising endurance of 25,500 nautical miles.
Manufactured by four domestic dockyards, there are altogether 30 VLOCs of this type, which will be mainly used for the transportation of iron ore between Brazil and China.
