NEW ships ordered or chartered by parent CMA CGM are being introduced to ANL's Australian services, reports Australia's Daily Cargo News.

The 6,014-TEU CMA CGM Zingaro arrived in Melbourne April 2 from Kaohsiung on its maiden voyage in the A3N service from North & East Asia, in which it has replaced the 20-year-old 5,770-TEU CMA CGM Bellini.

The 75,826-dwt CMA CGM Zingaro is the third of six sister ships ordered by Belgium's Savery family's containership division Delphis NV and was delivered by China's Qingdao Yangshan Shipyard in mid-January.

The ultra-compact design by MARIC is 42.80-metre (17 rows) wide, but only 240-metre long; it has plugs for up to 1,150 reefer containers, and a speed of 20 knots.

According to Alphaliner the ship type has been developed to be highly flexible in regard to future fuel types and the conventionally powered vessels can be easily adapted to operate on ammonia or methanol, if required.

ANL/CMA CGM will soon take delivery of its sister, CMA CGM Baikal, which is due in Australia in June as a replacement for A3N's CMA CGM Chopin. By way of comparison the Composer class carry fewer containers on a longer (277 metre) but narrower (40 metre) hull.

The company has also introduced a newbuilding to the ANZEX service between N&EA and New Zealand.

In late January Japan's Imabari Shipyard at Mihara delivered the 5,920-TEU CMA CGM Fiordland, the third 'Imabari 5500 Compact' type to join CMA CGM. This class has a deadweight of around 70,400 tons, a length of 254.90 metre, a breadth of 40 metre (16 rows) and a draft of 14 metre.

The ships can load 3,995 TEU at a homogenous weight of 14 tons per TEU and have 1,000 plugs for reefer boxes. Speed is also 20 knots.