At 10:50 on April 26, the "Georgetown," the country's first 180,000-cubic-meter liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier independently designed and built by China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd., was successfully delivered and slowly departed from the China Merchants Heavy Industry dock in Nantong, heading for Singapore.
It is reported that the "Georgetown" has a total length of 298.8 meters and a width of 48 meters. It is equipped with a dual-fuel low-speed propulsion system and boasts advantages such as low evaporation rate and high environmental performance. It is currently the largest LNG carrier completed in China, marking a major breakthrough for Chinese shipbuilders in the field of large clean energy vessel construction.
A reporter learned from the Nantong Entry-Exit Border Inspection Station that due to factors such as heavy fog and tides, large vessels have a "window period" for navigating out of the river. Departures must be timed during the rising tide and when there is relatively less vessel traffic in the channel. Missing this window increases operating costs for enterprises.
"We boarded the vessel in advance to conduct hull inspections and minimized customs clearance waiting times to the maximum extent possible, ensuring that the 'Georgetown' set sail safely during the high tide period," said Liang Junhong, deputy captain of the Fourth Duty Team at the Nantong Entry-Exit Border Inspection Station.
An LNG carrier is a specialized vessel for transporting liquefied natural gas at minus 163 degrees Celsius. Due to the extremely high difficulty of its design and construction, this vessel type is known as the "jewel on the crown of the shipbuilding industry," with only a few shipyards worldwide possessing core construction capabilities.
Lu Jinlong, Project Manager for large LNG carriers at China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd., introduced that there are a total of 6 vessel orders of this type, with the remaining 5 already under construction. The next vessel is expected to be completed and delivered in 3 months.