Hudong-Zhonghua delivers the world's newest 174,000 cubic meter LNG carrier

On October 18, the "Zhongneng Fushi," a new type of 174,000 cubic meter LNG carrier independently designed and built by China, was completed in Shanghai. The ship was built by Hudong-Zhonghua ( Location   Comments   News Shipbuilding (Group) Co., Ltd., is the world's first large dual-fuel electric propulsion LNG carrier to adopt oil-gas mixed combustion technology that automatically matches the evaporation of liquid cargo tanks. LNG carrier It boasts strong propulsion capabilities and excellent controllability across all speed ranges, with extremely high safety and reliability. After commissioning, the ship will be used for LNG transportation from Australia to China, bringing 75,000 tons of natural gas to China per voyage and providing a continuous supply of clean energy to thousands of households.

"Zhongneng Fushi" is the first vessel of the Curtis LNG transportation project, with a single-ship cost of over US$200 million. The order is for 6 vessels, and 5 have been launched. The ship owner is China Energy Transportation Investment Co., Ltd., a holding company of three companies: COSCO Group's COSCO LNG Investment Co., Ltd. (CSLNG), Sinopec's Sinopec Guangdong, and Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL).

"Zhongneng Fushi" is 290 meters long, 45.6 meters wide, and has a design draft of 11.7 meters. It uses a thin membrane type liquid cargo system from GTT of France. The localization rate of this type of ship has been further improved, driving the industrial development of nearly a thousand equipment manufacturers in China and accelerating the internationalization process of China's metallurgical, shipbuilding, electromechanical, and marine manufacturing industries.

To ensure that liquefied natural gas is strictly controlled at -163°C, the LNG ship's cargo tanks are made of special non-expanding, low-temperature-resistant Invar steel. The inner tank of this LNG carrier is made of 3600 regular and tens of thousands of irregular Invar steel plates Welding ( Product Library   Purchase Request   Supply The total length of Invar steel welds on the entire ship exceeds 140 kilometers. The requirement is that the number of leakage points detected by single-compartment, single-layer helium should be less than 10, which is described as "embroidery on steel plates".

This is the first electric Propulsion System ( Product Library   Purchase Request   Supply LNG carrier undertaken by Hudong-Zhonghua. The installation and commissioning of the entire power system were completely new challenges. A large number of scientific and technological elites and skilled craftsmen from Hudong-Zhonghua worked day and night to overcome difficulties, completing the entire system commissioning with "zero errors" and high efficiency, earning high praise from the ship owner.

Compared with conventional LNG carriers, "Zhongneng Fushi" has many technological highlights. It uses 5 in-line main Generators ( Product Library   Purchase Request   Supply This is the world's first application of oil-gas mixed combustion technology, which flexibly matches and combines under various operating conditions and loads, has good operational adaptability, and is easy to maintain and manage; it adopts a new type of double-stern fin streamline, which is fast and energy-efficient; it adopts a dual-shaft propulsion system, which has strong endurance. This type of ship also has high-reliability fire safety capabilities. Even in extreme cases where the engine room loses power supply, it can still release a water mist spray system for Firefighting ( Product Library   Purchase Request   Supply extinguishing, greatly improving the safety of the ship.

LNG carriers are known as the "crown jewels" of shipbuilding and are internationally recognized as special vessels with construction difficulty comparable to aircraft carriers. Only a few countries in the world can build them. Hudong-Zhonghua is the only company in China that builds large LNG carriers, and "Zhongneng Fushi" is the 11th LNG carrier built by the company. The LNG carriers designed and built by Hudong-Zhonghua represent the highest level of China's shipbuilding industry and have been highly praised by the strictest international energy giants, including ExxonMobil, winning honor for China's manufacturing.

Hudong-Zhonghua is "leading" the construction of China's LNG carriers and has achieved numerous results, becoming a crucial part of the great victory of China's LNG industrial policy. It has milestone significance for China's shipbuilding industry in its transformation and upgrading, and has made historical contributions to ensuring and promoting the implementation of the national energy security strategy.

Since the 13th Five-Year Plan, Hudong-Zhonghua has focused on major scientific research in the serialization of LNG ship types, LNG offshore equipment, localization of key LNG equipment, and large-scale LNG production capacity. It has vigorously carried out research and development of polar navigation low-evaporation LNG carriers, island-type FSRUs, 220,000 cubic meter LNG-FPSOs, etc., and plans to form the overall design and manufacturing capabilities of FLNG by the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan. The industry expects that this shipbuilder with more than 80 years of history will write more "Chinese pride" stories.