Hanwha Ocean (formerly Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering) announced on April 2 that it has signed a contract for the construction of four 174,000 m3 liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers with Asia-based shipping companies. The order is valued at 1.239 trillion won (about $919.6 million), with a single-vessel construction cost of about $229.9 million. The new LNG carriers will be built by Hanwha Ocean Geoje Shipyard and are expected to be delivered by August 2027 onwards.
Together with the latest order, Hanwha Ocean has received orders for 16 new vessels valued at $3.27 billion this year. Clarkson data shows that of the 761 LNG carriers in operation globally, 179 were built by Hanwha Ocean, ranking first in the world in construction volume.
Hanwha Ocean said that by 2025, the company’s LNG carrier capacity will increase from 22 to 24 vessels.
Hanwha Ocean did not disclose the shipowner information of the above order, but according to the industry news and the cost of a single vessel, the order is likely to come from the second phase of QatarEnergy’s historic LNG fleet expansion program, which is the last four LNG carriers to enter into force in the memorandum of understanding for the construction of 12 LNG carriers signed between QatarEnergy and Hanwha Ocean on February 29 this year.
The first eight LNG carriers of Hanwha Ocean were signed on March 25 this year, with an order value of 2.4393 trillion won (about $1.818 billion), which are also being built by Geoje Shipyard, and are expected to be delivered by January 31, 2028.The total value of the order for the 12 LNG carriers is about $2.737 billion.
With the signing of the last four LNG carriers, Qatar Energy has ordered a total of 44 new vessels from three major Korean shipbuilding companies for the second phase of the historic LNG fleet expansion program. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean are undertaking 17, 15 and 12 vessels respectively.
Up to now, all 104 conventional 174,000 m3 LNG carriers ordered by QatarEnergy under the historic LNG fleet expansion program have been contracted for long-term time charters. This is the largest shipbuilding and chartering program in history which will support the LNG capacity of QatarEnergy’s North Field Expansion Project and the Golden Pass LNG export project in the US, as well as meet its long-term fleet renewal needs.