Samsung to deliver worlds first Q-Max

Samsung Heavy Industries will deliver the world?s biggest LNG tanker to Exxon Mobil Corp.?s venture in Qatar in August. The 266,000 m3 tanker, named Mozah, is the first in a 14 ship series and took 15 months to build after the yard cut steel in April 2007 and will be named on 11 July. For Samsung, the world’s second-largest shipyard, LNG vessels account for 30% of revenue according to C.H. Park, executive vice president for project planning at Samsung.

“The vessel can hold almost twice the amount of LNG as conventional tankers while it can save 30% of transportation costs,” said Park. “Overall, it’s 50% more cost-efficient than a traditional tanker.”

Qatar, the world?s biggest LNG producer, has ordered 45 LNG tankers from three Korean shipyards, each capable of carrying more than 200,000 m3. The ships include 31 tankers of 209,000 m3 capacity, known as the Q-Flex, and 14 Q-Max vessels, of which Mozah is the first. The price of a Q-Max increased to $400 million currently from $300 million in 2005 when Samsung’s yard was booked for the ship because steel and raw material prices have risen, Park said.

Global LNG consumption is set to increase 10% a year through 2015, more than five times the estimated gain in crude oil demand, Citigroup Inc. said in a report in April.

In addition to the existing 270 LNG tankers, there are orders for 118 new ships still to be built and 29 have been delivered this year.

Powered by slow-speed diesel engines that work more efficiently than steam turbines, the Q-Max has a re-liquefaction plant that returns evaporating gas back to the storage tanks, maximizing the fuel cargo at the discharge port. Traditional tankers typically lose 0.15% of cargo a day during a voyage.

Qatar, which overtook Indonesia in 2006 to become the world’s biggest LNG exporter, plans to expand capacity to 77 million tonnes by the end of the decade, accounting for a third of the world’s supply in 2010.