LNG

China National Offshore Oil Corp. said it completed the concrete castings for the foundations of six of the world's largest LNG storage tanks being constructed for the Yancheng-Binhai Port terminal in China's eastern Jiangsu Province.

CNOOC said the six storage tanks, each with 270,000 cubic metres capacity, have been designed and developed in China.

Upon completion, each of six new storage tank will be 60 metres high and with each having a diameter of 100.6 metres and with a total casting volume of 70,860 cubic metres.

The Yancheng-Binhai terminal first phase involves the construction of 10 large-scale LNG storage tanks, including four already built and which are smaller with 220,000 cubic metres capacity.

Ren Jianxun, deputy manager of the project, was cited by CNOOC as saying that low winter temperatures presented a problem in trying to avoid cracks in the massive volumes of concrete being used.

“We decided to adjust the concrete pouring area to be symmetrical scattered by 45 degrees, thus reducing the length of construction joints, effectively preventing cracks and improving construction quality,” explained Ren.

CNOOC said that the cost of the six largest tanks was around 6 billion yuan ($950 million) and the Binhai venture would have two gas-fired power plants adjacent.

The first phase is scheduled to come on line by the end of 2023 with the 10 tanks operating.

Jiangsu's Yancheng-Binhai terminal will have an annual LNG regasification capacity of an initial 6 million tonnes per annum, though will also have the largest LNG storage base in China with the 10 tanks.

Further expansion

CNOOC has described the Binhai project as an important asset in the industrial upgrade of the Yangtze River Economic Zone.

For the next stage of the project, CNOOC said it would likely add a further 10 storage tanks, each of 270,000 cubic metres of capacity, to give an open-ended capability.

CNOOC has the largest regasification capacity of the Chinese majors with a presence in eight of the existing 22 import terminals, even after state-backed PipeChina bought and opened up several CNOOC-owned terminals to third-party access.

A second large LNG import terminal with mega-storage, the Tianjin Port Nangang project in northeast China, is also under development.

Two liquefied natural gas LNG carriers, the “Boris Davydov” and the “Rudolf Samoilovich” after safely completing the final leg of their East-West voyages on the Northern Sea Route which has become ice-bound earlier in the 2021-2022 winter season.

“Two LNG carriers Boris Davydov (in the Laptev Sea) and Rudolf Samoilovich (in the East Siberian Sea) continue their voyages to the port of Sabetta without ice-breaker support,” said the NSR information office.

The 172,000 cubic metres capacity “Boris Davydov” was due to berth on November 25 at the Novatek-operated Yamal LNG export plant at Sabetta in northern Siberia.

The vessel had previously delivered an LNG shipment to the Chinese port of Jiangsu, according to the Russian NSR data.

The “Rudolf Samoilovich” was also heading for Sabetta and is scheduled to arrive on November 27. The ship had last visited the Russian Far East port of Nakhodka, though had delivered a shipment of LNG to the Tangshan terminal in the Caofeidian Industrial Zone of Hebei province.

Speed

“At the time of the report, their speed was 16-18 knots,” added the NSR body.

However, another vessel, the “Mechanic Pustoshnyy”, is drifting in the Laptev Sea, and a second ship, the “Mikhail Somov”, is adrift in the western part of the Vilkitskiy Strait.

The report concluded that in the western part of the NSR, the icebreaker “Yamal” finished the escorting of the ships “Yurii Arshenevskiy” and “Vitus Bering” at Cape Zhelaniya.

The Yamal plant is the focus of NSR energy shipping activity. It has three liquefaction Trains on stream, each with nameplate capacity of 5.5 million tonnes per annum, as well as a smaller fourth Train with 900,000 tonnes of output, taking overall production to 17.4 MTPA.

All the LNG vessels serving Yamal LNG are around 172,000 cubic metres capacity and have ice-class Arc7 notation.

The Arc7 design allows ice-class LNG carriers to break through ice that is up to 2 metres thick.

The Russian shipbuilding company, Zvezda Shipbuilding, is building a series of 15 next-generation Arc7 ice-class LNG vessels for Russian natural gas company Novatek’s Arctic LNG II project under construction on the Gydan Peninsula in the same region as the Yamal facility.

These newbuild Arc7 LNG vessels have increased ice-breaking and manoeuvring characteristics compared with the existing fleet used by the Novatek-operated Yamal LNG project.

The 15 carriers will be registered and flagged under the Russian Federation and operated by the Russian crew when delivered. 

Chinese liquefied natural gas imports surged just over 16 percent in the past month as natural gas demand for the nation’s economic growth showed no signs of slowing amid a gas infrastructure build-out.

Shipments of LNG are continuing unabated on a small fleet of Arc-7 ice-class carriers from the Russian Yamal export plant in northern Siberia along the Northern Sea Route to North Asian destinations such as China and Taiwan.

ENN Energy Holdings, the Chinese city-gas company and owner of the Zhoushan LNG import terminal in eastern Zhejiang province, reported a jump in annual profits and increased retail gas sales.