China’s Wuhu Shipyard recently delivered a 6,600-tonne-capacity chemical and product tanker fitted with 12 separate cargo tanks and DC electric propulsion.
The tanker has been designed to carry hazardous chemicals, petroleum products and edible cargoes. The cargo tanks use 2205 duplex stainless steel and can each carry a different cargo type, thus allowing high-cleanliness transport and small-batch, multi-cargo operations.
Wuhu Shipyard said the DC propulsion arrangement will allow the generator sets to operate at their optimum fuel consumption speed without having to synchronise their frequency with the vessel’s speed or load. The system also incorporates a high level of automation.
At low vessel speeds, one or two generators can remain in operation, keeping them within an efficient operating range. The builder said this will provide fuel savings under low-speed and variable-load conditions compared with conventional AC electric propulsion and direct shaft drive.
Wuhu Shipyard previously delivered an earlier tanker from the same series, RF Ran, to Norwegian shipowner RFOcean in April 2026.