World’s largest river-sea intermodal LNG carrier delivered in China 

Chinese shipbuilders Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co and China Shipbuilding Trading Co deliver an 80,000-cubic meter LNG carrier, which is currently the world’s largest river-sea intermodal LNG carrier, to their client Shenzhen Gas Co.

The Dapeng Princess is also the first LNG carrier to be completed and delivered by Hudong-Zhonghua in 2023, marking the start of the shipbuilder’s new journey to implement the strategy of doubling LNG carrier production capacity, according to a statement sent to the Global Times by the company.

The Dapeng Princess is the world’s largest fourth-generation LNG vessel built to navigate shallow water waterways. Independently designed and built by Hudong-Zhonghua, the carrier is 239 meters long and 36.6 meters wide.

According to the shipbuilder, the Dapeng Princess is designed to have the shallowest draft of any LNG vessels of its class in the world. Its unique design draft, which is less than 8.5 meters high, enables the ship to sail both on river and sea. It can enter China’s Yangtze River basin and Pearl River basin even during the dry season.

Large cruise ships, LNG vessels and aircraft carriers are known as the “pearls in the crown” of the shipbuilding industry. The LNG carrier is widely known as a vessel of high-tech, high-value and high-reliability across global shipbuilding markets. Hudong-Zhonghua commenced the research and development of LNG carriers in 1997 and has delivered 41 vessels to date, shaping up a full production line covering ships for far ocean to offshore and inland rivers.

The shipbuilder currently has received orders for nearly 50 LNG vessels, with its production scheduled to 2028. It plans to deliver four to five LNG carriers this year and will have a record 16 ships under production in parallel.

China remained to be the world’s largest shipbuilder in 2022. Chinese companies topped the globe in three major indicators, contributing 47.3 percent of global output, receiving 55.2 percent of new orders and having 49 percent of holding orders, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology revealed.

As for the LNG carrier sector, Chinese shipbuilders undertook a record high of 55 orders for large LNG carriers in 2022, accounting for more than 30 percent of global orders, industrial data showed.