COINCIDING with the French Maritime Economy Conference, Rodolphe Saadé, chairman and CEO of the CMA CGM Group, recommended that French President Emmanuel Macron initiate an international coalition for the energy transition of the transportation sector. Its aim would be to develop a more competitive and less carbon-intensive energy source.

Rodolphe Saadé also announced the choice of Marseille-Fos as a strategic hub in the Mediterranean for the supply of LNG for its future 15,000-TEU vessels.

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Mr Saadé stressed the need to improve the co-operation of all those working on near-term solutions to replace fossil fuels in the transportation and logistics sectors. The French President actively supported this initiative, whose first forum could be held at the occasion of the World Conservation Congress in Marseille in June 2020.

In 2017, the CMA CGM group became the first in the world to order LNG-powered 23,000-TEU ultra-large container vessels. The first of these, the CMA CGM Jacques Saade, was launched in September 2019 and will make an exceptional call to Marseille in June 2020.

The group has also released an educational video on LNG in order to promote a better understanding of the issues related to its development.