Environmental performance financing

Development Bank of Japan and ClassNK established ‘Zero-Emission Accelerating Ship Finance’ to support the maritime industry’s transition toward decarbonisation.

Under the program, ClassNK evaluates ships based on a comprehensive scoring model jointly developed by DBJ from the perspective of ‘decarbonisation, environmentally friendly performance, and innovativeness’ and DBJ provides investment and financing.

The first project assessed the 84,000m³ LPG carrier, Crystal Oasis, built at the Sakaide Works of Kawasaki Heavy Industries for owner, Kumiai Navigation.

The evaluation considered the following:

• That the dual-fuel main engine using LPG has realised a significant reduction of SOx and CO2 in the exhaust gas, and the ship has been certified to be compliant with the Energy Efficiency Design Index Phase 3 requirements achieved prior to the enforcement of the regulation
• That the installation of an exhaust gas recirculation system and a selective catalytic reduction system has enabled the ship to meet the NOx Tier III regulation
• In further consideration of the prevention of air and marine pollution, that the ship is equipped with various environmental technologies not mandated by international conventions, and is assigned ClassNK’s Environmental Awareness and Advanced Environmental Awareness notations.

The ship was awarded an ‘S’ rating, the highest in the program, meaning the ship shows ‘particularly high decarbonisation, environmentally friendly performance and innovativeness’.