China delivers first LNG carrier

China’s first domestic built LNG carrier successfully completed its sea trials and was recently handed over to China LNG Shipping Holdings Co, a joint venture of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), COSCO and China Merchants Group (CMG).

The 147,210 m3 membrane type LNG carrier will be using boil off gas to power its propulsion plant and was built at a cost of $160 million at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai. The 292 meters long, 43.35 meters wide gas carrier took about 27 months to be built, some six months behind the contracted delivery date, and the shipyard hopes to reduce this to 17 months for each of the next four LNG carriers on order. Xu Jianping, deputy general manager of China LNG Shipping Co said that “The delay was no surprise to us because it was the first time that China has made the special-purpose tanker.” The shipbuilder is scheduled to deliver the second LNG carrier to China LNG shipping later this year and a third one in the first half of 2009 for the Guangdong LNG project.

The other two LNG carriers are destined for the Fujian LNG project, which will receive its first spot LNG cargo late this month from Algeria, although formal operation is not expected to start until early 2009. Both projects are chiefly developed by China National Offshore Oil Corp.

The new vessel will be put in service to transport LNG from Western Australia to a gas terminal at Shenzhen in China, replacing part of the service now supplied by foreign carriers. It is estimated that, by 2010, China will need 15 to 18 million tons of LNG and up to 35 million tons by 2020 requiring 30 to 40 LNG carriers.