(Yicai Global) Sept. 24 -- A unit of China State Shipbuilding has delivered the world's largest container vessel powered by liquefied natural gas to France's CMA CGM after two years of construction.

The ship, named CMA CGM Jacques Saade, will start plying the French transportation company's Asia-Europe routes, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group told Yicai Global. It is one of the largest container ships constructed by Chinese shipbuilders so far.

The carrying capacity of the 400-meter vessel is nearly 220,000 tons, or 23,000 twenty-feet equivalent units. The low-emission vessel can reach a speed of 22 knots.

Shanghai-based Hudong-Zhonghua penned a deal with the Marseille-headquartered company in 2017 to build five ships with the same capacity. But the Covid-19 pandemic postponed the intended deadline of April or May forward. 

It took Hudong-Zhonghua only 30 months to design and basically finish building CMA CGM Jacques Saade's main body, which is impossible to achieve in any other part of the world, Xavier Leclercq, CMA CGM's vice president, told Yicai Global.

Editor: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine