China, being a prime energy importer is going to launch the world’s largest LNG tank carrier delivery. Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group had made the vessel from the two vessels’ second one and is calling the LNG tank container transport the world’s largest dual-fuel cargo ships. They expect to dispatch the first ship in the next upcoming few weeks. They are planning to launch both of them for the LNG import business.
Tiger Maanshan’s, with the 250,000 dwt started sea trial on November 5 after being removed from the dry dock construction site. The testing for another vessel Tiger Longkou has been completed in October only. Seeing both of the attempts were successful, the news has been coming from the shipyard that they will advance the delivery date. Now the delivery date is scheduled to be in December 2021. The company is four months earlier than the scheduled timing. For Tiger Gas, the two ships along with two others and four more are under construction. This whole operation is under the CEO of Seaspan, Gerry Wang.
Every dedicated vessel will transport LNG but instead of going in an old-fashioned way, Tiger Gas will transfer LNG gas tanks in the same way as maritime containers. The capacity of each ship is that it can load up to 700 45ft tank containers and move around 15,000 tons of LNG. The registration of the vessel happened in Hong Kong and it is 630ft in length and has a beam that is of 121 feet. All of them will have dual-fuel engines and their fuel will be LNG. Their speed will be 16 knots and will cover a range of 5,000 nautical miles. According to Tiger, the ship will improve the LNG transferring efficacy. The group is planning to expand the technology to other parts of the world.
Tiger has envisioned a plan for door-to-door LNG delivery. It means direct delivery to end users without any middle person. The ship can dock at a lesser big terminal as well thus individual delivery of tanks will also be possible. They will be able to travel in inland waterways as well like the Yangtze River of China. This will make the wider businesses range to convert to liquefied natural gas. As it makes reaching consumers an easy task. The Malaysian state-owned Petronas group will provide the LNG as per the long-term supply agreement. Adjacent to Petronas MLNG plant, in Bintulu Port, Tiger has constructed their filling and distribution center.
The first test run of the vessel was completed in May 2020 only, in which two containers moved to China’s Zhengpu port. In another bigger scale operation, 200 LNG tank containers were transferred from Malaysia in January 2021. In the second run, in April 2021, 205 tanks were transferred. There are trials going for Tiger Maanshan. The expectations are that they will deliver it by 2022 along with two sister ships that will follow the course later in 2022. According to the CEO, currently, the whole focus of Tiger is on China. But they are also considering a plan to expand from Malaysia to Vancouver, Canada.
