The delivery ceremony of MSC Cruises’ latest flagship MSC Euribia has taken place at Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France – and ITTN was on hand to witness the event.
The coming into service of MSC Euribia marks another significant step on the MSC Cruises’ decarbonisation journey as she will also be setting sail on the first ever net zero journey for a cruise ship.
The ship features a range of technologies and solutions that minimise impact on the air and marine environment, including latest advanced water and waste treatment facilities
The coin ceremony also took place for MSC Cruises’ third LNG-powered vessel and second World Class series of vessels MSC World America set to be the next milestone in the Cruise Division’s journey towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
MSC Euribia features the most energy-efficient cruise ship design ever. The delivery, effectively, demonstrates what the future of cruising will look like.
MSC Euribia is the final evolution of the popular Meraviglia class and the second ship for MSC Cruises to be powered by LNG, the cleanest and most efficient fuel available currently commercially at scale. Onboard, she boasts a range of best-in-class environmental technology, including advanced onboard wastewater treatment systems and waste management handling.
She has also been designed with the future in mind, allowing her to easily incorporate future innovations in sustainability, such as carbon-neutral synthetic and other alternative fuels as soon as they are available at scale.
MSC Euribia represents a leap forward from previous vessels in her class built for the Cruise Division of MSC Group. She delivers even greater efficiencies and is expected to be the best-performing cruise ship in the world, performing beyond the latest IMO Energy Efficiency Design Index requirements. When in service, the vessel emits up to 19% less greenhouse gas emissions per passenger per day than her sisterships which use conventional marine fuels. This amounts to 44% less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per passenger per day than ships built only 10 years ago.
Pierfrancesco Vago, Executive Chairman of the Cruise Division of MSC Group, said: “With the delivery of MSC Euribia, we have taken yet another huge step towards our net zero GHG emissions goal. Alongside her many best-in-class environmental innovations, MSC Euribia features a truly groundbreaking energy efficient design that will deliver huge reduction in GHG emissions throughout her lifetime.
“Often the focus of decarbonisation is solely on supply side measures, and although they are an important part of the energy transition, we must not forget the essential role that energy efficiency will play in reducing energy demand today. The cleanest energy is the energy that we don’t use and MSC Euribia has been constructed with this principle at its heart. This is why she marks with her coming into service such an important milestone toward our goal of achieving net zero CGH marine operations by 2050.”
MSC Euribia has been built for the future. Although the vessel can be powered using Liquefied Natural Gas the ship design can accommodate drop-in renewable fuels today and retrofits that will enable MSC’s to use renewable fuels not yet available today, such as green methanol.
Further state of the art technology includes advanced water and waste treatment facilities. MSC Euribia has the latest advanced water and waste treatment facilities to help save the seas worldwide. Wastewater is treated to a very high quality that is of a better standard than many shoreside municipal wastewater treatment systems worldwide. The technology meets the strictest international IMO standards – including the so-called Baltic standard.
Mr Vago added: “It’s important to us that our ships being built today are ready to accommodate the new sustainable fuels that are on the horizon. We also want to ensure they can easily be retrofitted with new technology and new efficiencies that will help deliver net zero greenhouse gas emissions. This is a ship truly built with the future in mind.”
MSC is working with fuel providers and others on deploying drop-in sustainable fuels like advanced biofuels and biogas today. Looking into the future green methanol will likely contribute to the decarbonisation effort, as will synthetic e-fuels such as green hydrogen and eLNG. Its focus is the development of scalable solutions that can be used universally.
The Coin Ceremony for MSC World America
The coin ceremony for the third LNG-powered ship in MSC Cruises’ fleet – and first based in the US – MSC World America, also took place as a further step towards creating a world where technology meets innovation for a more sustainable cruise experience.
The new ship, due in 2025, will feature many of the environmental innovations present on MSC Euribia but with additional ones like pioneering technology to virtually eliminate methane slip from LNG when in operation. The two Godmother’s for this traditional ceremony were MSC Cruise Divisions’ Silvia Turbia and Chantiers de l’Atlantique’s Séverine Blandin.
