The San Giorgio shipyard launches its Italian-made LNG vessels.

San Giorgio del Porto, the Genoese shipyard known, among other things, for dismantling the wreck of the Costa Concordia, has just delivered the Green Heart, a LNG bunkering vessel, to its owner. This is the second vessel (the first is the Green Pearl, which will begin operations in October) built according to the green & tech shipbuilding standards, a rapidly expanding sector globally but still underserved in Italy. This is why the shipyard has chosen to invest in this area.

"With the launch and delivery of Pearl and Heart, the first two ships in the green line," explains Ferdinando Garré, head of San Giorgio del Porto, "the shipyard has concretely demonstrated that it is possible to bring the construction of complex vessels between 10 and 180 meters back to Italy, if equipped with technologically advanced systems and custom-built around a project shared with the shipowner from the initial stages. The significant gap in labor costs in general compared to the Far East can be partially rebalanced thanks to Italian and European technical expertise, particularly in the integration of complex and high-tech systems, where the price differential with Asia is significantly reduced."

With this in mind, Garré adds, "we have also equipped ourselves with the expertise and facilities needed to contribute to the future logistics and infrastructure network for LNG and new alternative fuels, which will become central with the addition of numerous dual-fuel units already on order to the fleet between now and 2030. San Giorgio del Porto therefore intends to support sustainable energy distribution in Italian and Mediterranean ports, aligning itself with what is already happening in the major Northern European ports."

In line with that goal, Garré concludes, "two years ago we established our shipping division, with the company Genova Trasporti Marittimi, entrusted to Beniamino Maltese. This was not with the aim of competing with the shipping market, but rather to create a design laboratory where we could develop initiatives in partnership with leading operators, who retain direct management of the ships, while San Giorgio remains a minority partner, until the industrial and operational objectives are achieved."

The Green Heart, which has a capacity of 5,000 cubic meters of LNG, was delivered on July 1st. The vessel was entirely built in Italy: the hull was constructed at the Piombino site of San Giorgio del Porto, which has a production hub there, in addition to those in Marseille and Genoa. The hull was launched in 2024 and then transferred (via the semi-submersible barge Arcalupa) to the Ligurian capital for final outfitting and delivery. According to the shipyard's technicians, it is "a highly technologically advanced hybrid vessel, equipped with a sophisticated battery system capable of providing up to 25% of the zero-emission propulsion, as well as dual-fuel engines, capable of running on methanol and biomethanol."