United Arab Shipping Company’s Al Zubara, part of the world’s greenest fleet of ultra-large container vessels, has passed the new Suez Canal for the first time.

“UASC’s vessels passed through the Suez Canal around 295 times last year, reflecting its importance to us,” said Basil Al-Zaid, chief financial officer of UASC. “Having the new canal operational has helped to reduce our vessels’ transit time, which of course reflects positively on the company.”

The recently delivered Al Zubara has a capacity of 18,800 TEUs. UASC currently has four other ships in this class, which is considered to the greenest in the world because of the ships’ low carbon emissions.

Al-Zaid was speaking at a celebration event which is part of a series of activities being organized by the carrier to celebrate 40 years in business. Among the attendees were Khaled Fahmy, Egypt’s minister of environment, Mohab Mameesh, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Emad Oraby, general manager of UASC Egypt and Nevine El-Messeery, CEO of Ahli United Bank, which handles UASC’s canal-passage payments and contributed to financing UASC’s current newbuilding programme of 17 vessels.