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Bangkok: The first of the world's largest tankers for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is due to be delivered on time by the end of the Northern summer, an executive at Gaztransport & Technigaz SA said.
Fourteen more of the so-called Q-Max ships, which hold almost twice the amount of LNG as conventional tankers and will carry shipments from Qatar, are in construction, Frederic Deybach, engineering director at the Saint-Remy-les-Chevreuse, France-based designer of LNG containment systems, said on Thursday at a conference in Bangkok.
Qatar, the world's biggest LNG producer, has ordered 45 LNG tankers from three South Korean shipyards capable of carrying more than 200,000 cubic metres each. The ships include 31 so-called Q-Flex ships, with a capacity about 1.5 times that of conventional tankers, and 14 Q-Max vessels.
Eight Q-Flex vessels have come into service so far and the other 23 are in construction, Deybach said.
Capacity
The Q-Flex ships have a capacity of as much as 216,000 cubic metres, while the Q-Max vessels have a capacity of as much as 266,000 cubic metres, said Andrew Richardson, shipping project manager at Qatargas Operating Co. The remaining 37 Q-Flex and Q-Max tankers are due to be delivered by mid-2010, he said.
Each Q-Flex cargo is enough to power South Korean households for two days. Conventional LNG tankers typically carry about 138,000 cubic metres, Deybach said.
The start of deliveries of the Q-Max and Q-Flex tankers will contribute to a record jump in LNG shipping capacity this year, said Deborah Turner, director of LNG at BS Energy Services. About 257 LNG tankers are in operation, excluding the Q-Flex ones that have just started up, while another 129 are on order and due to come into service by 2011, she said.
The rate of tanker start-ups is outpacing the growth in LNG supply, Turner said. Sixty new tankers are due to come into operation this year, followed by another 40 next year, Turner said. That falls to about 16 in 2010 because orders have tailed off due to delays in the start-up of LNG supply projects, he said.
warning
supplies hit growth
The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry growth is being hampered by a slowdown in new supply projects, consultants and analysts said.
A reduction in the rate of project approvals is causing oversupply of shipping and import terminal capacity,Wayne Perry, managing director of Galway Group LP, aHouston-based energy advisory firm, said yesterday in Bangkok.
A surge in construction costs is delaying commitments by some companies to invest in new supply projects, such as the Chevron Corp.-led Gorgon venture in Western Australia.
About 45 million metric tonnes a year of new plants, equivalent to almost a third of existing capacity, are being held up in Nigeria and Egypt as governments seek to ensure adequate supplies for local markets, Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd. estimates.
- Bloomberg
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