Saga LNG Shipping Pte. Ltd., a new LNG player backed by Landmark Capital, signed a shipbuilding contract with China Merchants Heavy Industry on Monday, for a liquefied natural gas carrier with 45,000 cubic meter cargo capacity, with an option for one more.
The company said that the same newbuilding project was set in motion at Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry in January of this year. However, due to undisclosed reasons, the project was delayed and in order to meet strict deadlines with potential end-users, the project was moved to another shipyard.
“The vessel will now be constructed at China Merchants Heavy Industry’s Haimen based shipyard in China’s Eastern Jiangsu province and is set to be delivered in early 2018, ” the company said in a statement.
The mid-sized carrier will be the first ever to utilize the LNT A-BOX® containment system, licensed and designed by LNG New Technologies (LNT). The vessel has been designed for worldwide trade of LNG, but with special consideration to re-loading of cargoes and local and regional trades.
LNT A-BOX® features an IMO independent tank type A primary barrier and an independent full secondary barrier. These two barriers are separated by an accessible inter-barrier space to allow for easy inspection. The containment system’s self-supporting tanks have an internal structure which mitigates sloshing, and thus the vessel will not have any partial loading restrictions. The secondary barrier system will be provided by the marine insulation expert MGI Thermo, which has been heavily involved in the development.
In addition to the recently established dedicated shipping-arm, Saga LNG Shipping, Landmark Capital is also targeting a variety of floating projects in the sector calling for FSU, FSRU or FLNG solutions which would also be based around the LNT A-BOX.