China's first self-made liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, which is taking shape in dry dock in Shanghai, has a price tag larger than that of a Boeing 747.

The first LNG ship is widely regarded as a milestone in China's booming shipbuilding industry for the advanced technology it will carry and the high profit it is expected to yield.

"The construction of China's first LNG carrier implies that China's shipbuilding industry has entered a new phase, and it will make the industry more competitive in the world's market," said Zhang Xiangmu, a senior official with the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence.

Dubbed as "a pearl of the shipbuilding industry," an LNG ship, with a price tag usually between US$170 million and US$200 million, is double hulled and relies on insulation to keep the liquefied gas at minus 163 C throughout the journey.

According to the shipbuilder, Shanghai-based Hudong-Zhonghua shipbuilding (Group) Co Ltd, sections of the LNG ship were moved into a dock late last month, where the pieces will be assembled. Then the ship will leave dry dock in mid-December for inner fittings.

The eye-catching vessel, scheduled for delivery by November 2007, will be used to transport liquefied natural gas from Australia to South China's Guangdong Province, where a 7-billion yuan (US$846 million) LNG terminal is under construction, said Fang Huimin, a press officer with Hudong-Zhonghua, a subsidiary of the State-owned China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC).

The terminal, expected to go online in mid-2006, will import more than 3 million tons of LNG from Australia, annually, to supply energy-starved regions, including cities of Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou and Foshan, as well as Hong Kong, via undersea pipelines.

Fang said the building of LNG carriers has long been dominated by a handful of countries, such as South Korea and Japan.

Wang Hengyuan, chief technology inspector of the shipbuilder, said the first LNG vessel is a prismatic, membrane type that conforms to the shape of the ship's hull.

There are basically two types of LNG carrier in the world. The other type is called 'Moss', in which the tops of the spheres protrude above the hull making the ships instantly recognizable.

"We imported the patent for the cryogenics from a French company," Wang said. "At present, about 90 per cent of the design drawings have been finished, and 90 per cent of the raw materials and equipment have been purchased."

Wang said the first carrier is designed to contain 147,000 cubic metres of liquefied natural gas, whose volume will expand by 600 times under normal atmospheric temperature.

"The technology required is very demanding and complicated," Wang said. "We have studied the building of an LNG carrier since 1997, and workers underwent about 8,400 programmes of special training."

Wang said the LNG vessel is double-hulled with two layers of membranes made of Invar, a metal high in nickel content that does not contract under low temperatures.

The liquefied gas is carried at atmospheric pressure in the specially insulated tanks, referred to as the 'cargo containment system', inside the inner hull, Wang explained.

He said that even a worker's sneeze or sweating could harm the Invar-melting process because one drop of foreign fluid on the 0.7-millimetre-thick membranes could lead to a leak that is invisible to the naked eye.

Apart from the first LNG vessel, Hudong-Zhonghua now has three LNG vessel orders in hand with a possible fourth to come, Wang said. Construction on the second one, which is also being made for the Guangdong project, will soon be carried out.

The world is facing a LNG boom, and China is moving to incorporate natural gas expansion into its energy strategy in order to be environmentally friendlier, relieve energy security concerns and improve energy efficiency.

Xu Kai, general manager of the Nantong Cosco Khi Ship Engineering Co Ltd, said China plans to build several more LNG terminals in provinces such as Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong.

(China Daily July 18, 2005)