LNG

Hanwha Ocean, the South Korean shipbuilding company formerly known as Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, is said to be considering a move into the offshore platforms and drilling sector while continuing to increase its LNG carrier newbuild backlog.

Korean regulatory information shows that Hanwha Ocean has registered two new trademarks, suggesting expansion into the maritime energy drilling sector as the nation’s companies seek more profitability.

The registrations concern “Hanwha Drilling” and “Hanwha shipping”, though the Group has yet to disclose its intentions.

Hanwha Ocean, formerly DSME, was acquired by the Korean conglomerate, the Hanwha Group, in 2022 and was rebranded as Hanwha Ocean in May 2023.

Two Japanese companies have just filed an order for an LNG carrier to be built at Hanwha Ocean’s Geoje Shipyard in South Korea.

Tokyo Gas, the utility company and LNG importer, said its Tokyo LNG Tanker Company concluded a long-term charter contract with Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) for this newbuild vessel ordered by MOL.  

MOL LNG fleet

MOL has a growing energy shipping business with a fleet including over 150 tankers for oil and other products and about 90 LNG carriers.

Tokyo Gas said that the charter agreement meant that the company had 11 LNG carriers fixed under a long-term charter.

The utility said that the MOL-owned newbuild would have 174,000 cubic metres capacity and be delivered in 2026.

The carrier will have a service speed of 1.5 knots and would be 295 metres in length and a beam of 46.4M.

“The Hanwha Ocean-built vessel will be equipped with the state-of-the-art MAN Energy Solutions engine (ME-GA) with improved fuel consumption efficiency and is expected to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions compared to conventional LNG carriers,” said the utility.

“From 2026, the vessel will be utilised for TG Group’s LNG procurement and LNG trading,” it added.

“With this charter contract, the TG Group will continue to promote stable energy procurement while giving further consideration to the environment amid the changing surroundings of the global LNG market,” it added.

US energy engineering company McDermott has been awarded two contracts by the leading LNG producer Qatar for the Arabian Gulf nation’s largest oil field.

South Korean shipbuilders, the global leaders in the construction of liquefied natural gas carriers, ranked second in 2023 in terms of new global orders for all types of vessels for a third straight year, though increased their share of the LNG newbuilds market.

The Korean Register (KR), the maritime classification society of South Korea, said simultaneous operations of ship-to-ship bunkering of liquefied natural gas were successfully conducted at the Port of Gwanyang, where there is also an LNG import terminal.

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French liquefied natural gas storage technology company, has received an order from China for five very large LNG-powered containerships to be constructed in South Korea.

The Korean Register, the classification society of the Republic of Korea, has awarded an Approval in Principle (AIP) for an LNG dual-fuel Very Large Gas Carrier (VLGC) jointly developed by KR and South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The award was made at the five-day Gastech energy conference and exhibition in the Asian city state of Singapore.

“Currently, the global maritime industry is grappling with the development of various counter-measures to meet strengthening greenhouse-gas regulations and there is more market interest in eco-friendly ships fueled with LNG in particular,” said KR.

The newly approved LNG dual-fuel VLGC, which has been developed in response to market needs, utilizes both marine gas oil (MGO) and LNG as fuel and incorporates two LNG fuel tanks positioned on both sides of the open deck.

HHI executed the ship’s basic design, established the layout of fuel supply pipes and the gas detection system and designed the LNG fuel tank using their technical expertise.

Verified

KR verified the safety, suitability and the regulatory compliance of the design by reviewing national and international regulations, leading to the issuance of the AIP for the LNG dual-fuel VLGC.

“KR has been focusing on the development of eco-friendly technologies relevant to LNG for several years because LNG is considered a major alternative that can meet the international regulations,” said Kim Yeontae, Executive Vice President of KR’s Technical Division.

“We will further enhance our customer support to respond to decarbonization, based on our experience and technologies acquired from joint development projects with shipyards,” Kim added.

Jeon Seungho, HHI’s Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, said he was delighted with the award.

“HHI has been working to develop eco-friendly fuel propulsion ships such as LNG using our accumulated design technologies, and we are pleased to demonstrate our technical expertise with this AIP,” Jeon explained.

Order book

“We will continue to make technological innovations for the development of eco-friendly ships,” he stated.

HHI is one of the world’s leading builder of LNG carriers as well as LNG-powered vessels at its Ulsan shipyard.

The advanced facilities give the Korean company a 10 percent share of the global market. The main HHI yard stretches over 4 kilometres along the coast and has 10 large-scale drydocks with nine huge “Goliath Cranes”.

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.

Nov 18 (LNGJ) - Shipyards in China and South Korea have seen orders in the past month for at least eight newbuild liquefied natural gas carriers and one floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) as the global fleet expands to meet rising demand. The orders include two vessels of 175,000 cubic metres capacity under an order made by German ship management company Hammonia Reederei and to be delivered between 2025 and 2026 from China's Yangzijiang Shipbuilding.

   Two other newbuilds were ordered by US plant developer Venture Global from South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) for a price of $500 million, according to shipyard data. The two ships are due for delivery at the end of 2026. The Chinese company Tianjin Southwest Maritime (TSM) has joined with the leasing entity of China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC) to order a further three 174,000 cubic metres capacity LNG vessels from China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding.

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French designer of LNG storage tanks for ships and for onshore, has chosen the Gastech Conference in Milan to launch a new corporate image and logo to reflect its clean-fuel role and broadening activities in storage and smart shipping.

The South Korean mid-sized shipyard K Shipbuilding Co., formerly known as STX Offshore and Shipbuilding, has signed a preliminary deal with Kongsberg of Norway to cooperate on technologies for smart ships as it re-organises and outlines plans to capture parts of the market from LNG vessels to containerships.