Deltamarin Ltd. of Finland has been retained to become the designer for five 38,000 dwt stainless steel parcel chemical tankers for Stolt Nielsen Ship Finance Ltd, a subsidiary of Stolt-Nielsen Limited. The ships were ordered in November 2012 from Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co. Ltd. in China (see earlier story).
The design contract includes approval design and 3d modeling of cargo deck and engine room areas.
The ships are designed to deliver substantial improvements in fuel efficiency, while providing operational flexibility with their fully stainless steel cargo tanks, cargo pumps, heating and cooling capacity.  With a relatively shallow draft when fully loaded, the ships will consume significantly less fuel compared with existing parcel tankers. The hull form and propulsion arrangement are a further developed from the successful B.Delta bulk carriers configuration of hull form and propulsion arrangement.
Each of the ships will have 43 stainless steel tanks with a total volume of 44,000 cubic meters. The parcel tankers will meet both Marpol Annex I and Annex II cargo requirements, complying with common structural rules for oil tankers.  The ships will have IMO I, II and III capabilities and will be able to handle the full range of difficult-to-handle cargoes that Stolt Tankers carries.
The main dimensions of the vessel are: length overall 185 m and beam 32.26 m.
Mr Markku Kanerva, director of sales at Deltamarin states: "The design was developed in a close cooperation with Stolt Tankers and Hudong-Zhonghua to meet the set high targets of fuel efficiency, cargo capacity and operational flexibility. The preliminary model tests already confirmed the performance and further optimisation will be carried out with the final propulsion arrangement. Development of structural configuration to meet the Common Structural Rules and to optimise the amount of stainless steel has been a demanding task."
The value of the design work is approximately 25 man-years and the work will be carried out at Deltamarin's offices in Europe and utilizing the partner network.
This new B.Delta newbuilding project has been brokered by Deltamarin's partner Barry Rogliano Salles (BRS).