On September 26, “China (Changxing Island) LNG Ship Industry Chain Development Conference” was held in Changxing Island, Shanghai, at which China (Changxing Island) LNG Ship Supporting Industrial Park was officially unveiled.
LNG carriers, known as one of the “three crown jewels” of the shipbuilding industry, are difficult to build and complex. In recent years, the domestic LNG shipbuilding industry has developed rapidly, breaking the situation monopolized by foreign shipbuilding enterprises for a long time. As an important base of China’s shipbuilding and marine equipment industry, a LNG localization industry chain is growing on Chongming Changxing Island.
Currently, orders for LNG carriers on Changxing Island are growing. Taking Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding as an example, following the signing of an order for 18 ultra-large LNG carriers with QatarEnergy in Beijing at the end of April this year, which is the largest in the world at 271,000 cbm, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding signed a new order for 6 LNG carriers on September 11 in Shanghai. Hudong-Zhonghua ranks first among all shipbuilders in the world in terms of gas carrying capacity establishing its position as an innovative leader in the global super-large LNG field.
As a leader in the field of China’s LNG carrier, Hudong-Zhonghua has completed five generations of product innovation and development after 27 years, realizing the full coverage of products from coastal to oceanic, from inland to inland waterway, and from small, large to super-large products. Hudong-Zhonghua has undertaken more than 100 LNG storage and transportation equipments, delivered more than 40 ships, and driven the development of tens of billions of localized supporting industries, which demonstrates its strong scientific and technological innovation iterative ability and R&D, design and construction strength.
It is reported that there are already about 70 ship and offshore enterprises in this industry park. Letting related enterprises in the LNG industry chain gather together can play a role in strengthening, replenishing, fixing and stabilizing the chain of LNG carriers, and it can also make LNG carriers produce the effect of clustering in Changxing Island, so that their development can reach a new height.
As the birthplace of the modern shipbuilding industry and the forefront of R&D and innovation of marine engineering equipment, Shanghai is striving to build a “world-class shipbuilding and marine engineering equipment industry cluster” and a “world-class shipping service industry cluster”.
In 2023, the output value of Shanghai’s shipbuilding and offshore industry will reach RMB 100.7 billion (about US$14.36 billion). In particular, Changxing Island, as the first national demonstration base of shipbuilding and offshore industry features and the “bridgehead” of Shanghai shipbuilding and offshore industry development, the output value of shipbuilding and offshore industry exceeds RMB 51 billion (about US$7.27 billion). Shanghai has now gathered Jiangnan Shipbuilding, Hudong-Zhonghua, Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery (ZPMC), Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry etc., as well as state-level innovation centers,such as Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) Changxing Marine Laboratory (CML) and Shanghai Research Center of Han River National Laboratory, etc.
At present, China’s shipbuilding and offshore industry is ushering in a golden development period of innovation, green development and high-quality development. The Shanghai government will continue to strengthen the layout and cultivation of the shipbuilding and offshore industry industry, fully supportting Changxing Island to build a world-leading modern shipbuilding base.