LNG

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. 

Beijing Gas, the growing liquefied natural and pipeline supplier, maintained substantial revenues in the first half of 2020 while profits fell as the company said it was advancing its LNG import projects in Tianjin and Tangshan.

A second liquefied natural gas carrier is heading for China after the early re-opening of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from Arctic Russia to North Asia and could arrive as early as June 16.

China said that pipeline natural gas from Russia would soon start flowing to help meet future energy needs across several areas of the Chinese Northeast, though supplies during 2020 would amount to less than the equivalent output of one standard Train of LNG.

China Offshore Oil Engineering Co. has been awarded a contract to build a second LNG import terminal at Tangshan in northeast Hebei province and the cost of the project is estimated at 8 billion Chinese yuan ($1.1Bln) for the first and second phases.

PetroChina, the Hong Kong-listed arm of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), reported a drop of just over 23 percent in nine-month net profits to 37.25 billion yuan ($5.28 billion) due to a lower oil price and intensified competition in refining as it also faced revenue problems with LNG and pipeline gas imports.

Jan 30 (LNGJ) - The 147,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Min Rong” will deliver a cargo on January 31 to the Chinese Fujian terminal from the Tangguh export plant in Indonesia, operated by BP of the UK, according to shipping data. The 174,000 cubic metres capacity carrier “Gaslog Houston” will unload a shipment on February 2 at the Tangshan terminal in northeast China from the Gorgon plant on Barrow Island in Western Australia. The 172,000 cubic metres capacity “Kumul” will deliver a cargo on February 3 to the Chinese Qingdao terminal in eastern Shandong province from the plant in Papua New Guinea.

   The 174,100 cubic metres capacity vessel “Cesi Behai” is scheduled to deliver a cargo on Feb 6 to the Chinese Tianjin terminal for Sinopec from the Australia Pacific plant in Queensland. The 155,000 cubic metres capacity “Gaslog Savannnah” is delivering on February 8 to the Qingdao terminal, operated by Sinopec, from the Australia-Pacific plant in Queensland. The 210,185 cubic metres capacity Q-Flex vessel “Al Bahaiya” will unload a cargo on February 10 at the port of Tianjin from Qatargas at Ras Laffan.

   In other Asian deliveries, the 155,000 cubic metres capacity “LNG Venus” will deliver a cargo on February 7 to Singapore from Gladstone LNG in Queensland. The 216,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Al Thumama” will unload a cargo on February 5 at the Map Ta Phut terminal in Thailand from the Qatargas plant at Ras Laffan.

Sept 25 (LNGJ) - The 150,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Hoegh Esperanza” is scheduled to unload a cargo on September 25 at the Chinese Ningbo terminal in Zhejiang province from the Queensland Curtis plant in Gladstone, Australia. The 173,400 cubic metres capacity carrier “Murex” was unloading a shipment on September 26 at the Tangshan terminal in northern China from the Wheatstone plant operated by Chevron in Western Australia. The 147,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Min Rong” will deliver a shipment on September 28 to the Fujian terminal from the Tangguh export plant in Indonesia, operated by BP. The 215,000 cubic metres capacity Q-Flex vessel “Al Utouriya” is scheduled to deliver a cargo on September 29 to the Shenzhen terminal in southeast China from Ras Laffan in Qatar. The 174,100 cubic metres capacity carrier “Cesi Gladstone” will unload a shipment on October 3 at the Chinese Tianjin terminal, owned by Sinopec, from the Australia Pacific plant at Gladstone in Queensland. The 174,000 cubic metres capacity carrier “Maran Gas Ulysses” will deliver a cargo on October 2 to the Yung-An terminal in Taiwan from the Gorgon plant on Barrow island in Western Australia.

Sept 12 (LNGJ - The 145,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Seri Angkasa” is scheduled to deliver a cargo on September 13 to Brazil, reloaded at the Zeebrugge terminal in Belgium on August 26, according to shipping data. The 160,000 cubic metres capacity carrier “Cool Runner” will unload a shipment on September 14 at the Salvador import facility in the northeast Brazilian state of Bahia, reloaded from the Cartagena regasification terminal in Spain on August 23. The 155,000 cubic metres capacity vessel “Tangguh Hiri” will deliver a shipment on September 15 to the Chinese Tangshan terminal at Caofeidian Port in northeast Hebei province from the Gorgon plant on Barrow Island in Western Australia. The 153,000 cubic metres capacity carrier “Gaslog Chelsea” will unload a cargo on September 16 at the Pyeong-Taek terminal in South Korea from the Wheatstone plant operated by Chevron in Western Australia. The 155,900 cubic metres capacity carrier “Clean Planet” will deliver a cargo on September 17 to the Belgian Zeebrugge terminal from the Yamal plant in Russia. The 137,230 cubic metres capacity carrier “LNG Rivers” will deliver a shipment to the Spanish port of Bilbao September 25 from the Bonny Island plant in Nigeria.

Qatargas, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas producer and with plans to take output to more than 100 million tonnes per annum, said it signed a 22-year agreement with PetroChina to supply Chinese import terminals with around 3.4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas.