The following is the text of a news release from General Dynamics NASSCO:
(SAN DIEGO) — On Monday, General Dynamics NASSCO delivered the fourth vessel in a series of five ECO-class product tankers under contract with American Petroleum Tankers (APT). Bay State was delivered during a special signing ceremony at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego.
Bay State is a 610-foot-long, 50,000-deadweight-ton, LNG-conversion-ready product tanker with a 330,000-barrel cargo capacity. The new ECO-class design symbolizes the emerging direction of the shipping industry in the U.S. toward cleaner, more fuel-efficient modes of transporting product. Rep. Susan Davis pushed a button to signal construction for the ship in May 2015.
The construction and operation of the new ECO-class tankers are aligned with the Jones Act, requiring that ships carrying cargo between U.S. ports be built in U.S. shipyards. The Jones Act is responsible for more than 500,000 good-paying jobs countrywide and supports American shipyards, such as NASSCO.
NASSCO is the only major shipyard on the west coast of the United States conducting design, new construction and repair of commercial and U.S. Navy ships. In the past decade, NASSCO delivered 28 oceangoing ships to government and commercial customers — including the world’s first LNG-powered containerships.
For its commercial work, NASSCO partners with South Korean shipbuilding power, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), for access to state-of-the-art ship design and shipbuilding technologies.