Global shipping leader APL and the Bay Area air quality management district announced a landmark US$11 million project to cut vessel emissions and improve this city's air quality starting in 2010, Economics Week reported.

Armed with $4.8 million in air quality grants, the world's fifth-largest container carrier said it will retrofit its terminal and vessels to begin cold-ironing next December at the Port of Oakland.

Cold-ironing is industry jargon for turning off a ship's 2,000 horse power diesel generators at berth and connecting instead to electrical sources ashore. This enables vessels to maintain power in port while eliminating exhaust emissions.

Cold-ironing will cut more than 50,000 pounds of nitrogen oxide emissions ?C a leading component of smog ?C from ships berthed in Oakland and 1,500 pounds of particulate matter annually. APL will be the first and only carrier or terminal operator at the port to cold-iron vessels.

"Our job is to move the world's trade," said APL Americas Region President John Bowe. "Thanks to our partnership with the air quality district, we're proving that we can do it in a way that's sensitive to our neighbours in the community."

Starting this month, APL will begin outfitting five vessels that call regularly in Oakland for cold-ironing. Late next summer, APL will launch a four-month construction project to electrify berths at its Global Gateway Central marine terminal in Oakland. When that work is completed, cold-ironing will begin.