ANTWERPEN was delivered to EXMAR, the Belgian gas shipowner and infrastructure developer, a ship powered by WinGD’s X52DF-A ammonia-fueled engine, reported to be the world’s first ocean-going ship designed to operate on ammonia fuel.
The achievement is the result of a collaboration between WinGD, EXMAR, engine builder HD Hyundai Engine Machinery Division (HHI EMD) and shipyard HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. This is the first in a series of four newbuild ammonia dual-fuel midsize gas carriers, for EXMAR, each to be named after a Belgian city.
ANTWERPEN is a 46,000m³ LPG/ammonia carrier. The X-DF-A two-stroke engine features high-pressure ammonia injection supplemented by a low, targeted pilot fuel dose of around five percent at full load. Type Approval Testing (TAT) and Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) was completed in January 2026 at the HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' Engine & Machinery (HHI-EMD) facility in South Korea, witnessed by classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR), together with representatives from all major classification societies, under the supervision of EXMAR. The recent sea trials of the ANTWERPEN in South Korea confirmed that the engine delivers load handling, dynamic response and fuel efficiency on par with WinGD’s equivalent diesel-fueled X-Engines in both ammonia and diesel operating modes.
