The container ship with a capacity of 24,000 TEUs delivered by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co. Photo: Chinanews.com

Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp, on Tuesday delivered a supersized container ship, 12 days ahead of schedule, in another breakthrough for the country's ultra-large container shipbuilding.

The container ship with a capacity of 24,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) was designed independently by Hudong-Zhonghua. The ship has entirely indigenous intellectual property. It is 399.99 meters long, more than 60 meters longer than the world's largest aircraft carrier, and 61.5 meters wide, chinanews.com.cn reported.

With a deck size of 24,000 square meters, equivalent to 3.5 standard football fields, the newly delivered jumbo ship is 33.2 meters deep in its cargo compartment. It can carry 240,000 tons of cargo and its maximum stacking height is 25 containers, according to the report, describing the ship as the world's largest container ship currently in operation as measured by container capacity.

The jumbo ship adopts the world's latest hydrodynamic optimization technology, which features high speed and low fuel consumption in case of multiple loads and heavy loads. Compared with 23,000 TEU container ships that use traditional fossil fuels, the new ship can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 38 tons in terms of daily voyage.

The newest jumbo ship was a follow-up to a similar ultra large ship delivered by Hudong-Zhonghua in late June.

Currently there are five ultra large container ships under construction at Hudong-Zhonghua. The shipbuilder has delivered two supersized ships and has plans to deliver another within the year, media reports said.