News and Press Releases

Increasing Fuel Economy and Decreasing CO2 Emissions with Installation of Control Headers in New and Existing "K" Line Vessels

September 28, 2010

Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd ("K" Line) and Yokogawa Denshikiki Co., Ltd. (YDK) are pleased to announce expansion of the installation of the latest heading control system to "K" Line’s operating vessels due to its effectiveness.

YDK released the new heading control system called BNAAC, Batch Noise Adaptive Autopilot Controller, intended to increase fuel economy. The principal of this system is to update the ship’s parameter all the time by monitoring and reflecting changing meteorological and hydrographic conditions, while the original system just reflected the initial parameter setting.

“K” Line and YDK made the experimental trial of this system using an operating bulk carrier vessel thence successfully reached approximately 1 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions compared with the current system.

While “K” Line has already started to install BNAAC system to newly-built vessels, based on the results of the trial its expansion into operating vessels was decided, and the first vessel to be installed was M/V Becchio Bridge calling at Tokyo bay on September 13th.

Both “K” Line and YDK are jointly challenging preservation and conservation to protect our global environment.