One of the world’s biggest container ships has started making regular stops at Tanger Med. The CMA CGM NOTRE DAME arrived on Monday at the TC2 container terminal. The LNG-powered ship operates on CMA CGM’s French Asia Line 3 (FAL 3), which connects major ports in Asia with Europe.
The vessel will now call at Tanger Med regularly.
“This is one of the world’s largest container ships and the largest vessel under the French flag. It shows CMA CGM’s commitment to innovation and decarbonisation in maritime transport,” Florian Goupil, Managing Director of CMA CGM Morocco, said.
He also said Tanger Med is “a strategic partner of the Group and a major hub in our global maritime network.”
The company said it will continue investing in port infrastructure in Morocco to support foreign trade.
The CMA CGM NOTRE DAME is an Ultra Large Container Vessel with a capacity of about 23,000 TEU (20-foot containers). It is about 400 metres long and 61 metres wide, making it roughly the length of four football pitches.
The ship sails under the French International Register and is the largest vessel flying the French flag. It uses a WinGD dual-fuel engine that mainly runs on liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Compared with heavy fuel oil, LNG almost eliminates sulphur oxide and fine particle emissions, cuts nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 85%, and significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions. The ship is also ready to run on bio-LNG and synthetic methane.
The FAL 3 service links manufacturing centres including Shanghai, Ningbo and Yantian with northern Europe and the Mediterranean. Tanger Med acts as a transshipment hub, where containers are moved from giant vessels onto smaller ships serving ports in West Africa, the Mediterranean and the Americas.
The ship berthed at the TC2 container terminal, which has super post-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes that can reach across 24 rows of containers. The terminal also has a 16 to 18-metre draft, allowing fully loaded 23,000-TEU ships to dock safely.
Tanger Med handled nearly 17,000 port calls in 2025, including 1,300 ships longer than 290 metres.
