Chinese shipbuilder announces doubling of LNG vessel construction capacity

With the delivery of Ocean Oasis, a 174,000-cubic-meter LNG vessel, on Friday, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co, a unit of the world's largest shipbuilder, China State Shipbuilding Corp, announced that it has doubled its LNG ship production capacity during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.

Hudong-Zhonghua has completed the construction of 13 large liquid natural gas vessels and delivered 11 year-to-date. Taking Ocean Oasis as an example, the ship, measuring 295 meters in length and 45 meters in width, was constructed within 16 months, the shortest construction period for a ship of its kind, enabling naming and delivery three and-a-half months ahead of schedule, according to Hudong-Zhonghua.

This stands in stark contrast to the construction of China's first domestically built LNG carrier, Dapeng Sun. Delivered in April 2008, the vessel took 40 months to build, and the project spanned nearly a decade from inception to completion.