LNG

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French LNG storage technology company, has received design approval from two European classification societies for the latest containment system.

Seatrium of Singapore, a leading global company in repairing, upgrading or refitting LNG carriers, has signed a favoured customer contract with a South Korean shipping company.

Dec 8 (LNGJ) - French LNG maritime storage tank designer GTT has signed a “strategic cooperation agreement” with China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC), the leading Chinese shipbuilding group.

   The accord was signed at the Marintec China international trade fair in Shanghai. “The agreement provides for cooperation between GTT and 12 subsidiaries of the CSSC conglomerate, notably in ship design and construction, cryogenic containment technologies for LNG shipping, LNG as fuel and smart shipping1 solutions,” said GTT. Among the CSSC subsidiaries are Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, the Jiangnan Shipyard, Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co. and Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding.

French LNG storage tank technology company GTT has received two approvals from classification society Bureau Veritas, one relating to ammonia in LNG as a fuel application and a second for higher design pressure in LNG fuel tanks.

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French technology firm and designer of liquefied natural gas storage tanks, has been awarded a contract by the US Department of Defense to upgrade a military fuel storage facility featuring 20 steel-lined underground tanks with capacity up to 250 million gallons connected to fuelling piers at Pearl Harbor.

Under the agreement, GTT will work with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the US Navy to develop a solution to convert the existing tanks to double-wall containment at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.

“GTT engineers will use the company’s expertise in advanced tank containment system technologies, acquired over the past 60 years in the shipping and land storage of LNG under cryogenic conditions, to design a continuously monitored membrane barrier system that will extend the useful life of the tanks, originally built in the 1940s,” GTT explained.

“This award comes to GTT after a competitive source selection strategy launched last Spring by DIU,” said the French company.

GTT said the rigorous tender process was aimed at facilitating innovative technologies from the commercial sector that meet requirements, close capability gaps or provide potential technological advances to support the mission of the US Armed Forces.

“We are proud and honoured to have been retained by the US Department of Defense to assist them in extending the longevity of the Red Hill facility, recognized as both a Civil Engineering Landmark and a strategic asset to US Navy operations in the Pacific,” stated Philippe Berterottière, Chairman and Chief Executive of GTT.

“This contract is in line with our large capacity energy storage activities and clearly demonstrates our commitment to innovation beyond our traditional cryogenic business,” added Berterottière.

“Our goal is to contribute our technological and innovation capabilities to the sustainable preservation of Hawaii’s groundwater resources,” said the CEO.

In its traditional LNG market, GTT announced in early September 2020 that it had received an order from two South Korean shipyards for tank designs for six LNG carriers for Asian and European owners.

GTT said two of the newbuilds would be constructed by Hyundai Heavy Industries on behalf of a European shipping line.

The other four vessels will be built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, two on behalf of an Asian ship-owner and two for a European ship-owner.

Each vessel of the six on order will have a capacity of 174,000 cubic metres.

GTT said the ships would be fitted with the Mark III Flex membrane containment system.

The delivery dates for all six carrier are scheduled between the second and final quarters of 2023. 

Royal Dutch Shell’s head of Russian operations said the company was open to taking part in new liquefied natural gas projects in Russia with natural gas company Novatek and units of Gazprom, its partner in the Sakhalin LNG project.

Shell outlined its Russian strategy in a wide-ranging interview given by Shell Russia’s Chairman Cederic Cremers to the Russian news agency Tass.

Cremers said the Anglo-Dutch company had suffered LNG cargo cancellations because of the oil price plunge and Covid-19 but pointed out that the LNG business was a long-term one with joint venture liquefaction plants enjoying a lifespan of 25 years or more.

“Yes, we had some of our LNG customers who had some deferments of specific cargoes just in the short term and it was due to full storage tanks or full inventories,” he stated.

“However, the overall number of such cargoes is relatively small, very manageable for us operationally and within the normal bandwidths,” explained the Shell executive.

Shell, whose annual LNG sales amount to around 75 million tonnes,  had not been forced to reduce production because of any of the current challenges in the energy market.

“We can remarket these cargoes relatively effectively in the market,” said Cremers, whose company is a joint venture partner with Gazprom and two Japanese trading houses in the Russian Far East Sakhalin II LNG plant.

“Sakhalin-II has a very privileged position in the Asia-Pacific market being very close to the key markets: Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan,” said Cremers, who is on the supervisory board of the plant’s operating company Sakhalin Energy.

“In addition, it has always been a very strong and reliable partner for its customers. It has a very strong reputation in the market. We continue to be effectively placing many of the cargoes that we produce, including additional spot cargoes, into the market,” said the Shell executive.

“We have seen that the economic slowdown reduced both gas and LNG demand across the globe. This is a large drop compared with the projections that we had just a few months ago,” he explained.

“What is probably important is that it will take a little bit of time for the demand to come back to the previous projections that we had in terms of demand, but we do see continued growth,” he said.

“This is not about fundamental demand destruction, but rather it is about a slower pace of growth in the near term,” added Cremers.

Nevertheless, he said that Shell believed that fundamentals of the LNG market had not changed.

“We do believe that over the next 10 to 20 years an annual average growth rate of 4 percent per year is realistic,” he stated.

“It will remain the fastest growing sector in the hydrocarbon space. That means that if you look at this annual rate between now and 2040 the market will double in LNG,” said Cremers.

He noted that Shell also believed that in the broader scheme of things and including the energy transition, natural gas would be replacing the current sources of coal or diesel that are used to generate power in many places around the world.

As regards operations at Sakhalin-II, Cremers told Tass that Shell and the other partners, Gazprom, Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corp. were confident going forward.

“It is standard in our industry that long-term contracts always include some volume flexibility for buyers, which they exercise from time to time, as the market conditions change,” he said.

Cremers added that Shell was confident that an expansion of Sakhalin II was a logical way forward for an established industrial site in the Far East.

“The reality is that these projects have lifetimes of decades, more over than 20-25 years. They tend to be less dependent on short-term cycles and economic impact, but more on the longer-term trend including what I have mentioned earlier in terms of what is our long-term outlook is for the LNG market,” he explained.

Cremers stated that he believed in the future Russia would be one of most competitive supply sources for LNG demand growth and the Russian share as a supplier to global markets would continue to grow compared with the past.

He emphasized that Shell was open to taking part in different opportunities in Russia whether with existing partnerships or with new partners.

“Of all the energy companies working in Russia today, Shell actually has the most diversified portfolio,” said Cremers.

“We are active not only in LNG and in upstream oil business, but we are also very strong in downstream. We are proud that the Shell logo is present everywhere from Saint Petersburg to Sakhalin Island, if you look across Russia,” he stated.

“On the downstream side, we are striving to become the number one customer choice both in premium lubricants and in fuels,” said the Shell executive.

“On natural gas and LNG, we remain very keen to see how we could grow together with Russia whether it is in the expansion of Sakhalin-II or new projects and partnerships,” he added.

“With oil we are primarily focusing on the larger Western Siberian basin, starting from Salym and then right up through the North into the Gydan Peninsula,” said Cremers.

Air Liquide, the French industrial gases company, said it was marketing an exclusive, patented technology that is perfectly suited to the needs of liquefied natural gas carriers and LNG bunkering vessels. 

Sept 10 (LNGJ) - Wison Heavy Industry Co. of Nantong in China has signed an agreement with Japan Marine United Corp. (JMU) which allows the Chinese company’s subsidiary Wison Offshore & Marine to manufacture and market JMU’s self-supporting, prismatic-shape IMO type B (SPB) LNG tank containment system.

   “Together, we will provide a customized, cost-saving solution for LNG storage,” said the companies. “This SPB technology owned by JMU is well known for its LNG storage reliability and robustness since its development by IHI Corp (Japan) in the 1980s,” they added.

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French storage tank technology company, reported a more than 25 percent fall in first-half net profits as revenues and royalties from selling its designs also declined.

First-half revenues came to 122.63 million euros ($136.8M) compared with 127.24M euros in the same six months a year ago.

Of this total, royalties for newbuild LNG carriers came to 114.71M euros versus 120.43M euros in the first half of 2018.

The order book at the end of the first half, excluding LNG as fuel, stood at 107 units,  including 95 LNG carriers, seven floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs), two LNG production hulls and three onshore storage tanks.

GTT’s net income tumbled 25.2 percent to 56.60 euros from 75.72M euros in the same six months of 2018.

Regarding LNG as fuel, GTT said there were seven additional orders in the six months and the number of vessels in the order book stood at 18 at the end of June.

GTT said that recent highlights in its activities included the June 2019 order from the Chinese Jiangnan Shipyard for the design of LNG tanks for five new giant container ships on behalf of a European shipowner.

Each of these tanks will have a capacity of 14,000 cubic metres and the design will be the Mark III Flex technology.

The ships will be built on behalf of France’s global container line CMA CGM, based in the French Mediterranean port of Marseilles.

GTT also received an order in the earnings period from the Sembcorp Marine shipyard in Singapore for the design of tanks for an LNG bunker vessel on behalf of the shipowner, Indah Singa Maritime, a subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines.

GTT said it would design the tanks for that vessel based on the Mark III Flex membrane containment solution with a capacity of 12,000 cubic metres.

“The first half of 2019 was characterized by intense business activity and LNG carrier orders still at record levels,” said Philippe Berterottière, GTT Chairman and Chief Executive.

“In the field of LNG as fuel, the attractiveness of GTT membrane technologies to shipowners is increasingly evident with recent orders, including for five new very large container ships,” added the CEO.

“From a financial perspective, revenues were down slightly. However, the intake of orders from the last 24 months is beginning to bear fruit and revenues have risen 8.2 percent between the first quarter and the second quarter of 2019,”

“In terms of results, while the first half of 2019 is down on last year on account of the technical and human resources deployed, GTT will feel the wider benefit of the increase in activity as from the second half of 2019,” he stated.

“We are also proposing an interim dividend of 1.50 euros, up 12.8 percent compared to last year,” Berterottière told shareholders.

June 14 (LNGJ) - French maritime storage technology company GTT said it received an order from the South Korean shipyard Hyundai Heavy Industries for tank designs for two LNG carriers on behalf of the Greek shipowner Dynagas. Each vessel will have 180,000 cubic metres capacity and be equipped with GTT’s Mark III Flex-plus containment system. The vessels are scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2022.