Bureau Veritas to Class Yamal LNG Carriers

International classification society Bureau Veritas is to class the series of Arctic-capable liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers which will be built by South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) to service the Yamal LNG project in Russia’s high Arctic.

A series of fifteen vessels will be built, each capable of transporting 172,000cbm of LNG, and operating year-round in second year ice up to 2.5 m thick.

Yamal LNG has awarded Sovcomflot, MOL, Teekay and Dynagas one, three, six and five vessels respectively. They will be built to dual Bureau Veritas/Russian Register class.

Philippe Donche-Gay, Executive Vice President and head of BV’s Marine and Offshore Division, said: “We have made extensive investments in research into ice loads and navigation in ice, working with major Russian institutions and Asian shipyards. This effort, coupled with our world-leading expertise in large LNG carriers gives us a strong technical base to class these highly sophisticated vessels.”

The 300m long vessels will carry 172,000cbm of LNG in four membrane tanks of the GTT NO 96 type. The hull form is designed with a moderate ice bow forward and a heavy ice-breaking profile aft.

The ships are dual-acting, navigating in light ice or open sea bow first, then navigating astern to break heavy ice. The astern ice breaking mode is assisted by a podded propulsion system which consists of three pods delivering around 45MW of power. Separate engine rooms housing the diesel generator power plants will be encased in a double hull to give protection from the ice and a high level of redundancy.

The ships will be built to Russian Register Arc7 standard, equivalent to an intermediate level between Polar Class 3 and Polar Class 4 of Bureau Veritas rules. The vessels will be highly winterized with Bureau Veritas winterization notation COLD (-45,-52), which means that the hull is prepared for operation in -45 Celsius ambient temperature and the equipment should be able to work at -52 Celsius.