Qatari liquefied natural gas fleet owner and operator, Nakilat, has taken delivery of a newbuild carrier called “Global Sea Spirit”, its 22nd conventional-sized vessel and taking Qatar’s overall LNG fleet size to 74 ships.
The 174,000 cubic metres capacity “Global Sea Spirit” will be commercially and technically managed by Nakilat affiliate Nakilat Shipping Qatar Ltd (NSQL).
The latest LNG carrier was built by South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) and is the third of four LNG newbuild carriers to be delivered to Global Shipping Co. Ltd., a joint venture owned 60 percent by Nakilat and 40 percent by Greek company Maran Ventures Inc.
The first two LNG carriers newbuilds of the series have high-pressure M-Type Electronically Controlled-Gas Injection (ME-GI) engines.
They were delivered in May 2020 and January 2021 respectively and are currently in service.
The “Global Sea Spirit” is the first Nakilat vessel with X-DF propulsion, a slow-speed diesel engine with a direct drive to the propellers, enabling a substantial reduction in the vessel’s fuel consumption.
The fourth in the current DSME series will also have X-DF engines and delivery is scheduled for early 2022.
Advantages
“Like the ME-GI system, vessels running with X-DF engines propulsion are proven to be more fuel efficient, reduce greenhouse emissions and are more environmentally friendly due to their lower carbon emissions,” said Nakilat.
The “Global Sea Spirit” is chartered to Cheniere Marketing, a unit of Houston, Texas-based Cheniere Energy, owner of the Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana and the Corpus Christi facility in Texas.
The newbuild is the optimum size preferred for sending US Gulf Coast cargoes via the Panama Canal to North Asia.
The delivery of all four newbuild LNG carriers by 2022 will bring Nakilat’s fleet to 74 vessels, which is just under 12 percent of the current global LNG fleet based on carrying capacity.
Of these, there are 24 LNG carriers, four liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carrier and one floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) vessel being managed in-house by NSQL.
