On April 8th, the naming ceremony of CELSIUS GEORGETOWN, the first 180,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier independently designed and built by China, was held at the Haimen Base of China Merchants Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.
The naming and delivery of this vessel is an important achievement of the green and intelligent development of Nantong's shipbuilding and offshore engineering industry. It marks that "Nantong-made" has officially entered the core ranks of global large-scale LNG carrier construction, and China has added a new force in the field of high-value-added shipbuilding. Miao Jianmin, Chairman of China Merchants Group, Wu Xinming, Secretary of the CPC Nantong Municipal Committee, Li Ling, Vice Mayor of Nantong, and Shen Xudong, Secretary of the CPC Haimen District Committee of Nantong, attended the event.
LNG carriers are specialized vessels for transporting liquefied natural gas at a temperature of -163℃. Due to their extremely high design and construction difficulty, they are known as the crown jewels of the shipbuilding industry, and only a few shipyards worldwide possess the core construction capabilities. With the delivery of this vessel, China will have five shipyards capable of delivering LNG carriers, and its overall construction level will rank among the world's best.
The "CELSIUS GEORGETOWN" is the first of a series of six 180,000 cubic meter LNG carriers built by China Merchants Shipbuilding for the Danish Celsius Group. The vessel has a total length of 298.8 meters, a breadth of 48 meters, a designed draft of 11.5 meters, a service speed of 19.5 knots, a range of 22,000 nautical miles, and a cargo hold capacity of 180,000 cubic meters. It is equipped with a dual-fuel low-speed propulsion system and features low evaporation rate and high environmental protection performance. It complies with the latest environmental protection regulations of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and classification standards of classification societies.
In 2023, Celsius placed an order for six 180,000 cubic meter LNG carriers with China Merchants Shipbuilding. This marked the first time that China Merchants Shipbuilding had ventured into the large LNG carrier construction market. This series of vessels was independently designed and constructed by China Merchants Group. Currently, there are still four vessels of the same type at the Haimen base of China Merchants Shipbuilding that are about to be completed and undergo sea trials.
The liquid cargo tanks of this type of ship adopt the GTT Mark III FLEX film technology. The total capacity of the four liquid cargo tanks of the entire ship is 180,000 cubic meters. The maximum loading rate can reach 99.4%, the cargo evaporation rate is less than 0.085% per day, and it can navigate in no water area. It has extremely strong compatibility and can be compatible with the world's mainstream large LNG terminals. It is simultaneously equipped with two 5-cylinder main engines, two 8-cylinder generators, two 6-cylinder generators and a 2.0t/h reliquefaction unit. This can maximize the utilization rate of the reliquefaction equipment under extreme weather conditions in summer, meet the demand of maintaining cabin pressure with zero cargo loss, and fully utilize the main dimensions and key equipment capabilities of the ship type, providing shipowners with more competitive ship types to explore new markets.
It is expected that these new ships will be delivered successively between 2026 and 2027, and a long-term lease contract will be signed with Clearlake Shipping, a subsidiary of commodity trader Gunvor.
Miao Jianmin, in his welcoming speech at the naming ceremony, said that the 180,000-cubic-meter LNG carrier named this time has high technical barriers, strict construction precision and complex system integration. The successful delivery of this vessel is a vivid practice of China Merchants Group in implementing the strategies of building a manufacturing power and a maritime power, fully demonstrating the group's strong capabilities and core competitiveness in the design and construction of large LNG carriers.
Nantong's shipbuilding and offshore engineering industry is a national advanced manufacturing cluster. Currently, the scale of its shipbuilding industry accounts for approximately one-tenth of the national total, and the scale of its offshore engineering equipment industry accounts for about one fourth of the national total. It has gathered 428 large-scale enterprises in the industry, with an output value exceeding 220 billion yuan. It has successively built over 20 first-made ship types, including the country's first polar exploration cruise ship, the world's largest 24,000 TEU container ship, and the world's first FLNG.