On May 31st, the No.2 dock of Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group’s Changxing Shipyard was in a busy scene. The company completed launching of two 174,000 m³ LNG carriers and half-ship floating and drifting of another two large LNG carriers. It marks that the company’s large-scale LNG carriers have entered a new stage of batch, normalization, standardization and beatification, and the strategy of LNG carrier capacity multiplication has been fully accelerated.
In order to further improve the construction efficiency of large LNG carriers, Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding has included the new mode of parallel construction of four LNG carriers into the annual process and method innovation research specialization at the beginning of this year to carry out key planning and deployment.
In the process of implementation, Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding relies on a series of measures, such as scientific and technological innovation, intelligent manufacturing and digital process optimization, to continuously strengthen the production organization, node assessment and process control. The LNG vessel project team has achieved twice the result with half the effort by continuously promoting refined project management, coordinating the planning of resources, balancing the volume of each LNG carrier, identifying the construction risks and difficulties, and preparing the production plan of each LNG carrier.
Under the situation of full load construction, after 68 days of day and night hard work, the project team finally achieved the set goals of reducing the docking period by 20%, the best integrity of the entire ship launched in history, which accumulated experience and established confidence for the continuous consolidation and optimization of batch, normalization, standardization, and beatification for the construction of large-scale LNG carriers in the dock.
It is reported that the two LNG carriers launched are the fifth generation of Hudong-Zhonghua’s “Changheng Series” LNG carriers, which are independently developed and designed by the company, with an overall length of 299 meters, a beam of 46.4 meters and a depth of 26.25 meters.
The LNG carrier adopts many low-carbon and energy-saving technologies, and compared with the previous generation of LNG carriers, it has the features of low comprehensive energy consumption, good low-temperature performance, strong cargo-carrying capacity, and convenient operation and maintenance, etc. The LNG carrier reduces carbon emissions by more than 10 tons in a single day of sailing and has excellent global access to 120 LNG terminals on every continent.
It is understood that Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding currently holds orders for 34 LNG carriers of the “Changheng Series”, with cumulative orders for more than 50 LNG carriers of various types, and the delivery period has been scheduled until 2031. With the strategy of doubling the capacity of LNG carriers, Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding’s advantages in the large-scale construction of LNG carriers will be further highlighted, and the competitiveness of China Shipbuilding in the field of global large-scale LNG carrier construction will continue to be strong.