A Contract Worth US$857.9mn
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) has become the first shipbuilder to win orders for Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier project.
DSME announced on June 7 that it has landed orders for four LNG carriers with a cargo capacity of 174,000 cubic meters from a Korean consortium consisting of H-Line Shipping, Pan Ocean and SK Shipping.
The total contract value stood at US$857.9 million, with each ship priced at US$214.47 million. The ship price is not much different from the current average LNG carrier price of US$227 million.
These ships will be built at Okpo Shipyard in Korea and delivered to the client by the first quarter of 2025. They will be used for QatarEnergy’s North Field expansion project.
Qatar is the world’s largest LNG producer and is planning to ramp up its LNG production capacity from 77 million tons to 126 million tons by 2027.
As part of this plan, Qatar Petroleum (QP), Qatar’s state-run oil company which is now called QatarEnergy, signed slot contracts with Korea’s big three shipbuilders including DSME in June 2020 to build more than 100 LNG carriers.
The total cost of the huge shipbuilding project is estimated at US$19 billion (about 24 trillion won). The LNG carriers that DSME will build are the first batch of the ships to be built for the project. Additional orders are expected to be awarded to other Korean shipbuilders in the near future.
DSME's LNG carriers will feature low-pressure dual-fuel propulsion ME-GA engines and re-liquefaction facilities, which can significantly cut down on air pollutant emissions. In addition, the latest technologies such as DS4, the company’s smart ship solution, will be applied to them for efficient ship operations.
DSME received orders for 26 LNG carriers, or nearly half of the total 53 ships, in a Qatar LNG carrier project between 2004 and 2007 and successfully delivered them. DSME builds about 20 LNG carriers annually.