LNG

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French LNG storage technology company, has received another order from Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. in Northeast China for the tank designs for three LNG carrier newbuilds.

GTT said the latest order was received from its technology partner Dalian Shipbuilding on behalf of Chinese company China Energy.

The Paris-based company added that the tanks chosen for these three vessels, which will each offer a capacity of 175,000 cubic metres, will be the Mark III Flex membrane containment system.

GTT  said that the delivery of the vessels was scheduled for the first half of 2027 and the first quarter of 2028.

The latest order is the second this month from the Dalian yard after a previous order for two ships from Sea Jade Investment, a joint venture comprising Hong Kong-based shipping company Wah Kwong as well as China Gas and China Ship Leasing.

Capacities

Those two vessels will each have capacity of 175,000 cubic metres and will be fitted with the GTT Mark III Flex membrane containment system.

The delivery of the vessels for the Sea Jade consortium is scheduled between the first and the third quarters of 2027.

GTT has also noted in its most recent newsletter just published that the LNG sector had demonstrated more than 60 years of successful and safe operations. 

The French firm said it had contributed to this success though continuous innovation in new solutions, new design proposals and efficient assistance in the construction of well over 2.500 LNG storage tanks.

Modular tanks

GTT is also advancing marketing propositions for its modular LNG storage tanks that can be delivered by ships or barges, for example, to areas isolated from on the ground engineering expertise.

“Amid rising global energy prices and higher demand, new greenfield onshore projects are running into inflationary headwinds and facing significant challenges to deploy cost-effective LNG storage solutions,” said GTT.

“This is particularly true when accessing remote areas where logistics are complex and skilled manpower is difficult to deploy,” the firm added.

“Moreover, as projects become increasingly modularised, slower erection times inherent to stick-built tanks often drive overall project delivery,” GTT said.

South Korean shipyards outperformed their Chinese counterparts in terms of orders for liquefied natural gas carriers during 2022, though finished second to China in overall shipyard orders.

June 24 (LNGJ) - French LNG storage tanks technology company GTT has received an order from the shipyard in China of Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co (DSIC) for the design of two LNG carrier membrane tanks for CMES LNG Carrier Investment Inc. GTT said this was its first project for the construction of an LNG carrier at the Dalian yard.

   “These two LNG carriers will each have a total LNG tank capacity of 175,000 cubic metres and will be fitted with the Mark III Flex membrane containment system developed by GTT,” said the Paris-based firm. The deliveries of the vessels are scheduled for the third quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026.

China’s Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. (DSIC) said the world’s first LNG-powered very large crude carrier, the “Yuan Rui Yang”, would soon be ready to hand over to Cosco Shipping Energy Transportation after completing its gas trials following successful sea trials and LNG bunkering during the fourth quarter.

Cosco Shipping Energy Transportation Co., China’s largest LNG shipping business and the world’s biggest operator of oil tankers, has outlined its future strategy and its fleet management efforts.

That’s as Cosco reported total annual revenues from operations of 13.72 billion Chinese yuan ($1.92Bln), a year-on-year increase of 13.4 percent.

Its gross profit (EBITDA) was reported as 5.29Bln yuan ($747.4M), representing an increase of 36.3 percent from the previous year.

Cosco’s latest earnings and strategy emerged in its annual report just released by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The group’s LNG subsidiaries include Cosco Shipping LNG Investment (Shanghai) Co., a wholly-owned by the group, and China LNG Shipping (CLNG), in which the group holds a 50 percent stake.

The two are the only large-scale LNG shipping companies in China and have a combined fleet of 38 carriers with aggregate capacity of 5,900,000 cubic metres.

Three other LNG vessels under construction with aggregate capacity of 522,000 cubic metres.

Cosco posted LNG shipping revenue of 1.32 billion Chinese yuan ($186.5M), an increase of 11.9 percent compared with 2018 as its fleet slowly grows.
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The Shanghai-based company said that it planned to expand over time in the LNG sector, given the increasing global needs for cleaner fuel.

“The group has recognized the transportation of clean energy as the second development curve, and will seize market opportunities, give full play to competitive advantages and promote the development of potential LNG shipping projects,” it stated.

The company said it was working to improve its existing LNG fleet management system and the LNG vessels were becoming more competitive.

“Shanghai LNG, a subsidiary of the Group, passed the certification of Lloyd’s Shipping Register and obtained the first certificate for quality, health, safety and environment (QHSE) management system in China’s LNG shipping industry,” said Cosco.

“The accomplishment of the authoritative certification for the management system strengthened the Group’s position as a leader in China’s LNG shipping business,” it added.

Cosco said its overall transportation turnover for all vessels (excluding time charters) was 440.78 billion ton-nautical miles, a decrease of 19.2 percent year-on-year.

In terms of its oil fleet size, Cosco says it is the world’s largest tanker owner with a fleet of 151 crude tankers owned and controlled with a total capacity of 21.71 million dead weight tonnage (DWT).

The crude tanker fleet includes 142 self-owned vessels with a capacity of 19.25 million DWT, nine chartered-in tankers with a capacity of 2.46 million DWT and 17 new oil tankers on order with a capacity of 3.04 million DWT.

Cosco actively responded to the 2020 global sulfur limit overseen th by International Maritime Organization and will help promote the sustainable development of the industry.

Currently, all oil tankers of the group use low-sulfur fuel to meet the sulfur limit.

In addition, Cosco cooperated with Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. to develop the world’s first LNG dual-fuel Very Large Crude Carrier in compliance with phase III of the ship energy efficiency design index.

“With the international oil shipping market rebound in 2019, the group actively sought cargoes and reasonably raised voyage speeds, which caused a 11.7 percent year-on-year increase on unit bunker fuel consumption,” it explained.

“The company applied an efficiency optimization model in managing the voyage speeds and achieved the savings of 112.2 thousand tons of bunker fuels,” it noted.

During the reporting period, Cosco’s vessels in drydock increased by over 60 percent year-on-year.

This was due to the aging of vessels and the sulfur cap and spare parts replacement.

“Facing the rising demand for drydocking, the group actively communicated with shipyards to strictly control the non-operating period in arranging dry-docking schedules, which saved over 100 days and improved the fleet operating efficiency,” said Cosco.

Oct 30 (LNGJ) - MODEC Inc. of Japan said it signed a contract with ConocoPhillips (Australia) to provide a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel for the Barossa field, offshore northwest Australia that will supply the Darwin LNG plant. The Barossa FPSO is intended to produce gas and condensate from subsea wells supply Darwin via a gas pipeline.

   The Barossa FPSO is MODEC's largest Gas FPSO to date and will be able to export over 600 million standard cubic feet of gas per day as well as store up to 650,000 barrels of condensate for export. “It has been designed to withstand a 100-year cyclone event at a water depth of 260 metres and will be located some 300 kilometers northwest of Darwin,” said the company. The FPSO hull will be constructed in China at Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. (DSIC) in the northeast Liaoning Province.