TOTE, Inc.’s New LNG Containerships Receive Global Honors For Maritime Innovation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –Princeton, NJ- June 7, 2013- On June 4, TOTE, Inc. became the first U.S. company to take home the Next Generation Shipping award at Nor-Shipping, the premier forum for the global maritime industry.

The Nor-Shipping 2013 Awards recognize achievement in three different but very important areas – energy efficiency, innovative ship design and young entrepreneurship. With a focus on innovation, the Next Generation Ship Award honors the most promising design for ships that will be at sea in the coming decade. The award is given to the ship project demonstrating the greatest advances in design, as assessed with respect to energy efficiency, innovation, suitability and flexibility, technology utilization, safety and security, and environmental sustainability.

TOTE was honored for its Marlin Class of 3,100 TEU LNG-powered containerships, ordered from General Dynamics NASSCO in December 2012. Once completed in 2015, the 764-foot ships will operate in the U.S. Jones Act market between Jacksonville, Fla., and San Juan, P.R. The Marlin Class will be the world’s first LNG powered containerships. Construction on the ships will begin in March 2014.

"To say we are both honored and humbled by this prestigious internationally recognized award, would be a significant understatement. The team at TOTE, along with our partners at NASSCO, have spent many months working on this project, which we believe will have a lasting impact on our industry and the future of ship design. While we are proud to be the first ever ship owner to construct LNG powered container vessels, we are quite confident we will most certainly not be the last" stated Anthony Chiarello, President and CEO of TOTE.

TOTE’s ground-breaking move toward LNG fuel will reduce ship emissions 95 percent below even the most world's most stringent air quality standards. LNG will virtually eliminate Sulfur Dioxide (SOx), and Particulate Matter (PM), and results in reductions of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Nitrous Oxide (NO2) beyond any other fuel source.

The Nor-Shipping conference and awards ceremony took place in Oslo, Norway, June 4-7. An independent jury comprised of companies such as the IMO, DNV and The Norwegian Marine Technology Research Institute (MARINTEK) selected honorees for the nearly 50-year old gathering of industry leaders.

Other nominees for the Next Generation Shipping award included the Norled ZeroCat, an aluminum car ferry that uses lightweight construction and electric power to reduce energy consumption by more than half compared to conventional ferries; the Edda Ferd, a PSV featuring a new propulsion concept including diesel generator sets with variable rpm and hybrid propulsion; and the B.Delta, a new set of energy efficient, new generation standard bulker designs developed by Deltamarin.

About TOTE

TOTE, Inc., headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, owns and oversees eight independently managed companies organized in four lines of business: Maritime, Services, Shipholdings and Logistics.