Qatar paid for it, and China built 18 LNG ships in one go! South Korea was heartbroken when it heard this

#头条创作挑战赛#

Text/Zhan Hai

South Korea, although the area is very small, but for a long time is the world's only shipbuilding power, the total tonnage of shipbuilding, the number of ships are far more than other countries, South Korea's shipbuilding industry has won such as "Samsung Heavy Industries", "Hyundai Heavy Industries" and a series of giant enterprises.

However, since 10 years ago, China has begun to surpass South Korea to become the "world's first" shipbuilding industry, and in the following years, the gap between Korea and Japan and China has widened, and now China has taken the lead in the shipbuilding industry. China's shipbuilding industry has surpassed South Korea in terms of total tonnage, revised gross tonnage, and total orders, and it is conceivable that South Korea's shipbuilding industry is now desperate.

(The world's largest single shipbuilding order was won)

A few days ago, according to the "Xinmin Evening News" report on April 29, China Shipbuilding Group has signed the highest single ship order in human history with Qatar Energy, and China will build 18 of the world's top liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers for Qatar. Once again, the ceiling of China's shipbuilding industry will be further raised.

(The 174,000 cubic meter large LNG carrier "Kunlun" delivered by China last year)

First of all, in terms of tonnage, these 18 large natural gas carriers are the largest natural gas carriers under construction in the world and at the same time the largest natural gas carriers for mankind in the future. These 18 are 271,000 cubic meters of natural gas carriers, compared with the traditional 172,000 cubic meters of "large" natural gas carriers, the carrying capacity can be described as a "jump" improvement, each ship can transport nearly 6% more natural gas than traditional natural gas ships, not to mention the improvement of efficiency.

(This kind of gas ship is already different from the previous "spherical gas storage tanker")

Secondly, the increase in loading capacity is not just as simple as the enlargement of the ship, the draft and width of this super-large cargo ship need to comply with certain requirements, otherwise the draft is too deep, first of all, it is a difficult problem to enter the port, and secondly, if you want to pass through the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, then the draft and width are more important. The 18 ships are about 54 meters wide, which is wider than the traditional Suezmax freighter, but the draft is 12 meters, which still meets the conditions of the Suez Canal.

(Vintage spherical gas tanker)

Then there is the most critical storage tank for the transportation of natural gas. Although these tanks look like a metal tank, nothing special, but in fact these gas storage tanks are the most technically difficult, to maintain the stable liquefaction of natural gas, the temperature in the storage tank needs to be maintained at -163 °C, the whole storage tank also needs to withstand low temperature and high pressure, the construction process, material strength and other requirements are very high. This is also the fact that there are not many countries in the world that can build large gas ships. There is even an analogy that the difficulty of building such a super-large LNG ship is comparable to the construction of 18 aircraft carriers.

(The internal structure of the LNG ship gas storage tank is not simple, and the required technology is extremely high)

At present, China is the "only" in the world that can manufacture such ultra-large LNG ships, although South Korea claims to build 270,000 cubic meters of ultra-large LNG ships, but it is still on paper. Because on the one hand, no company has asked South Korean shipyards to place orders, and on the other hand, whether the Korean system is mature or not has to be said separately. Now Qatar is asking China to build these 18 LNG ships, which also contains certain political considerations, believing that China's future natural gas demand is large, and it is necessary to further strengthen cooperation with China. However, from the perspective of shipbuilding industry alone, China is already ahead of South Korea, and in the future, it will build this super-large ship ahead of South Korea and be recognized by relevant institutions earlier.

(China's ultra-large LNG carriers will be the first to be recognized by international classification societies)

You must know that South Korea has always been confident in its own LNG ships, and South Korea once surpassed China in LNG ship orders. However, now, with the dust settles on Qatar's order for 18 LNG carriers, the last "trump card" of South Korea's shipbuilding industry has fallen. Known as the "three top industrial pearls" of the world's shipbuilding industry, super-large luxury cruise ships, aircraft carriers, and LNG ships have all been "won" by China. China's shipbuilding industry has won a "grand slam" lead in all large ships such as large ro-ro ships, large container ships, large oil tankers, large luxury cruise ships, aircraft carriers, and ultra-large LNG carriers, sounding the death knell of the decline of South Korea's shipbuilding industry.