Hawaii is now being regularly supplied with goods delivered on two cargo ships powered by natural gas instead of higher-emissions fuel.
The MV Janet Marie completed its inaugural voyage in Honolulu on Wednesday afternoon after departing Long Beach, Calif., on Saturday.
The 774-foot-long containership is the second Pasha Hawaii vessel serving the state and running on liquefied natural gas. The first, the MV George III, began service a year ago.
Pasha’s two newest ships, each of which cost about $225 million, are named in honor of the late parents of company President and CEO George Pasha IV, who said in a statement, “Like my dad, my mom had tremendous aloha for the people of Hawaii.”
A Hawaiian blessing and celebration by company employees and guests followed the Janet Marie’s arrival at Pier 51 ahead of cargo being unloaded.
California-based Pasha launched Hawaii service in 2005 with one ship designed to carry 2,500 vehicles driven onto the vessel.
The company later added a second ship, and then in 2015 acquired the Hawaii operations of Horizon Lines Inc. The $141.5 million deal included four Horizon ships that made Pasha a considerably bigger competitor to dominant Hawaii ocean cargo transportation firm Matson Inc.
Pasha has said that liquefied natural gas, compared with conventional fuel oil burned to power containerships, provides environmental benefits that include reductions of sulphur oxides by up to 95%, particulate matter by nearly 100%, nitrogen oxides by up to 90% and carbon dioxide by up to 25% from engine exhaust emissions.
Matson also adding new ships as well as retrofitting some of its existing ones that will be powered by liquefied natural gas, or LNG.
Honolulu-based Matson announced in November that it would invest roughly $1 billion to buy three LNG-powered ships expected to be delivered between 2026 and 2027.
Matson also has plans to convert three existing ships to run on LNG. The first one of these conversions, to the 4-year-old Daniel K. Inouye, should be complete in September.
The Inouye, which was built in 2018, and three Matson ships built between 2019 and 2020 all have dual-fuel engines that can run on LNG with system modifications including holding tanks.
One of these three other ships, Kaimana Hila, is slated for the conversion in 2024 at a cost of $35 million. Matson also plans a more extensive conversion to replace the main engine on an older ship, Manukai, with a dual-fuel engine after work is finished on the Inouye.
The work on the Manukai is expected to begin later this year and take a year to complete.