On April 29th, China Shipbuilding Group Co., Ltd. and Qatar Energy held a signing ceremony in Beijing for the construction of 18 of the world's largest 271,000 cubic meters ultra-large liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers. Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Shan Zhongde, Ambassador of the North African Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lü Jian, Chairman of China Shipbuilding Group, Wen Gang, Vice President, Sheng Jigang, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and CEO of Qatar Energy, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, CEO of Qatar Energy Natural Gas, Khalid Al-Senai, Vice President of Business and Business Development at Qatar Energy, Jasim Al-Marzooqi, and other leaders and guests attended the signing ceremony.
Wen Gang stated in his speech that in recent years, Qatar Energy has vigorously implemented its natural gas production expansion plan and LNG carrier construction plan, rapidly increasing its natural gas production and export capacity, and playing an important leading and driving role in the accelerated development of global clean energy. China Shipbuilding Group is a leading force in the global shipbuilding industry and a staunch practitioner of the "Belt and Road" initiative. After years of hard work, it has achieved independent design and construction of large LNG carriers, continuously enhancing its discourse power in the global shipbuilding market. Over the years, China Shipbuilding Group has established and maintained a good cooperative relationship with Qatar Energy, jointly promoting the green and low-carbon transformation and development of the energy industry. This time, the two sides join hands again, and China Shipbuilding Group will concentrate its superior resources, carefully organize production, strengthen scientific management, and strive to create industry-quality projects and benchmark projects, ensuring on-time and high-quality delivery, providing strong support for Qatar Energy's accelerated production and transformation development, and creating a new model for economic cooperation between China and Qatar, making new contributions.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi stated in his speech that Qatar Energy has signed a construction contract for 18 of the world's largest 271,000 cubic meters LNG carriers with China Shipbuilding Group, setting a new record for the highest single new ship order amount, marking a historic breakthrough. This batch of vessels will support Qatar Energy in expanding production capacity in the northern gas fields and meeting the long-term renewal needs of the fleet. It is hoped that Qatar Energy and China Shipbuilding Group can further deepen pragmatic cooperation in the future, jointly assisting the sustainable development of the industry.
The LNG carriers in this signing project will be independently designed and built by China Shipbuilding Group's Hudong-Zhonghua, with a total length of 344 meters, a beam of 53.6 meters, a depth of 27.2 meters, a design draught of 12 meters, and adopting dual-fuel low-speed engine propulsion and NO96 Super+ containment system. The ship has five major technical features: in terms of cargo capacity, it adopts a 5-hold scheme with compact dimensions, increasing the carrying capacity by 57% compared to conventional 174,000 cubic meters large LNG carriers; in terms of performance, it adopts a multi-target optimized double aft finelines with excellent speed, lower boil-off rate, and 9.9% lower ton-mile cargo transportation energy consumption than 174,000 cubic meters LNG carriers; in terms of safety, the cargo tanks adopt enhanced insulation modules, equipped with real-time sloshing monitoring system, hull stress monitoring and collision avoidance system, with multiple protections and high safety and reliability; in terms of maneuverability, equipped with re-liquefaction system and shaft generator reverse thrust system, flexible control, 23% lower carbon intensity index (CII) than 174,000 cubic meters LNG carriers, can flexibly match various operating intervals of different routes; in terms of compatibility, diversified optimization of draught and loading design, covering major mainstream routes.
In 2020, Qatar Energy announced the internationally acclaimed "Hundred Ship Plan", which is to build more than 100 large LNG carriers to meet the transportation capacity needs after its upstream capacity expansion. This time, China Shipbuilding Group successfully obtained 18 of the world's largest 271,000 cubic meters LNG carrier orders from the "Hundred Ship Plan", which is an important manifestation of China Shipbuilding Group's increasing international influence in the field of ultra-large LNG carrier construction, marking that China's LNG carrier research, design, and construction has moved from large to ultra-large fields in one fell swoop, and its high-end ship research and design capabilities are marching towards the world's leading goals.
It is understood that 99 LNG carriers in the "Hundred Ship Plan" all use main engines authorized by China Shipbuilding Group's subsidiary WinGD, further demonstrating China Shipbuilding Group's deepening of LNG carrier industry chain and supply chain construction, and also promoting China Shipbuilding Group's strategic partnership with Qatar Energy to a new level, promoting more extensive cooperation in the energy field between China and Qatar, and building a long-term and stable energy cooperation relationship.
April 30, 2024
