The 174,000-cbm LNG carrier, Umm Ghuwailina, owned by Japan’s MOL and chartered by QatarEnergy, has completed its sea and gas trials, according to China’s Hudong-Zhonghua.
This is the second LNG carrier MOL ordered as part of the giant QatarEnergy project. In January 2023 the CSSC-controlled shipbuilder officially started building this vessel (H1791A).
State-run LNG giant QatarEnergy signed charter deals in April 2022 for these four LNG carriers with MOL, completing the first batch of charter contracts awarded under its massive shipbuilding programme.
The vessels, part of Hudong-Znoghua’s fifth-generation Changxeng series, are 299m long and 46.4m wide, and also feature a reliquefaction system. The first vessel in this batch of four ships was the 174,000-cbm LNG carrier Rex Tillerson.
QatarEnergy said in a statement in February 2024 that the first LNG carrier to be delivered as part of its new LNG fleet expansion was named in recognition of the former chairman and CEO of US energy giant ExxonMobil, who also served as the 69th US Secretary of State.
The LNG carrier is expected to be put in service in September 2024. It is a part of a 12-ship construction program at Hudong-Zhonghua that makes up the first batch of orders from China in QatarEnergy’s shipbuilding program.
Besides these vessels, QatarEnergy signed a major shipbuilding deal in April this year worth $6 billion with China State Shipbuilding Corp for the construction of 18 271,000cbm LNG carriers at Hudong-Zhonghua.
