Main information source: "18 LNG carriers worth nearly 6 billion US dollars! Chinese enterprises win the world's largest single shipbuilding order" - Huanqiu.com
Preface
On April 29, Continental Shipbuilding Group Co., Ltd. and QatarEnergy Group held a signing ceremony in Beijing.
Mainland China has won the largest order to build 18 of the world's largest LNG carriers of 271,000 cubic meters!
And such an act is undoubtedly "snatching food from the tiger's mouth" and completely breaking the monopoly of the United States and Japan!
How to prey on the tiger's mouth
Previously, South Korea and Japan were also bound to win the project.
As early as the 90s of the last century, South Korea and Japan began to vigorously develop the shipbuilding industry, and invested a lot of money in the research and development of LNG ships, and the two countries formed a monopoly in the field of LNG ship construction.
In recent years, the three shipyards in South Korea and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan have also won most of the world's orders, so they are full of confidence and feel that they have a chance to win.
But they underestimated China's speed, and did not expect the mainland to catch up and successfully win this largest order from the "tiger's mouth".
In 2019, more attention was paid to the pandemic, and at that time, Qatar Petroleum had already said that it would conduct international tenders to order a large number of LNG carriers to meet the transportation demand.
As soon as this news came out, it attracted the attention of global shipbuilding enterprises, and Hudong-Zhonghua of the mainland contacted the Qatari company very early and officially expressed its intention to cooperate.
At that time, the wind direction was more in favor of South Korea, and some people analyzed that South Korea was very likely to obtain the order.
So far, the vast majority of Qatar's LNG orders have been signed with South Korea and manufactured by South Korea.
South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding also expressed hope that Qatar will favor South Korea as the first choice for building new LNG carriers.
In late 2019, Qatar's gas company also sent a delegation to South Korea for a visit, which boosted the confidence of the Korean shipbuilding industry.
After that, Qatar announced its own 100-ship plan to build more than 100 LNG ships.
In the first phase, 54 ships were ordered to South Korea's three major shipyards, while China's Hudong-Zhonghua received only 11 orders.
This makes South Korea even more confident that Qatar will definitely hand over most of the orders to them to build, and they will still be the leader in this field.
In June 2023, the second phase of Centennial Shipbuilding kicked off, and it was also at this time that things took a turn.
Due to the previous epidemic, the inconvenience of personnel exchanges between the two countries has had a certain impact on on-site inspections and negotiations.
Qatar sent personnel to visit Hudong-Zhonghua this time, Hudong-Zhonghua showed the demeanor of a great country and led the personnel to visit and talked about the current shipbuilding strength of the mainland, so that Qatar saw more possibilities.
Moreover, China is a major customer of Qatar's natural gas, and cooperation between the two sides is more conducive to maintaining bilateral relations.
After comprehensive consideration, Qatar made the final choice to hand over the 18 QC-MAX ships to Hudong-Zhonghua for construction.
The QC-MAX is by far the world's largest LNG carrier design, and it has greatly improved performance, storage capacity, and compatibility.
So, what is the impact of the order signed between China and Qatar on China?
What are the implications?
This large order shows Qatar's high recognition and trust in Chinese shipbuilding enterprises, and allows more countries to see the strength of Chinese shipbuilding enterprises.
It is not only conducive to improving the visibility and recognition of Chinese shipbuilding enterprises, but also conducive to helping China expand its market and obtain more shipbuilding volume.
And Qatar's handing over this new type of LNG to Chinese shipbuilders shows that China's shipbuilding capacity has reached the world's advanced level.
China has realized the transformation to high-tech and high-value-added products, and at the same time, the mainland's innovation ability has also been continuously improved, which is conducive to the subsequent development of mainland shipbuilding enterprises.
Moreover, the huge amount of this order has promoted the development of the mainland's economy and improved the economic benefits of the mainland's shipbuilding enterprises, which is of extremely important strategic significance.
This order will undoubtedly change the pattern of the global shipbuilding industry, from the original Japan and South Korea to China, Japan and South Korea, China will play a core role.
As we can see from the front, LNG carriers are very difficult in terms of technology and manufacturing.
In addition, this technology has been monopolized by Europe, the United States and South Korea before, and it is basically impossible for us to come into contact with this technology.
So, how exactly did the mainland build LNG ships?
Ten years of sharpening a sword
The mainland's LNG carriers have lasted a total of 20 years from scratch to refinement.
LNG carriers are mainly used for the transportation of natural gas, and the mainland's demand for natural gas is rising, and the mainland's natural gas consumption has been growing at a very high rate since 2000.
In addition, the proportion of LNG transportation volume in total transportation volume has increased year by year, and maritime transportation has become the main mode of LNG transportation.
The market prospect of LNG carriers is extremely impressive, which also prompts the mainland to start developing LNG ships.
The mainland entered the shipbuilding field later than other countries, and there was a huge gap between it and Japan and South Korea in the early days, so the mainland had to work harder to make up for this gap.
In 2003, the mainland approved its first LNG transportation project, and one year later, China Transit Natural Gas Co., Ltd. was established.
It has invested a lot of money in the research and development of LNG carriers, and sent many scientific researchers to design and research.
It took 4 years to master the core technology of LNG carrier manufacturing, and let the people of the world see China's speed.
It took Japan and South Korea 10 and 8 years to build their first LNG carriers.
In 2008, the mainland's first LNG carrier, the Dapeng Hao, was successfully delivered, which can carry 145,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas.
In the next two years, the mainland designed two LNG ships, "Dapeng Yue" and "Dapeng Star", and both were successfully delivered.
Three LNG carriers sail at sea and take on the heavy responsibility of transporting LNG by sea on the mainland.
With the strong global demand for LNG, orders for LNG manufacturing in mainland China have gradually increased, and there is a larger sales market.
Later, countries carried out clean energy strategies, forcing shipping technology to reform or use clean energy, which played a role in promoting and promoting LNG, and at the same time, increased the demand for LNG ships.
By the end of September 2022, China had already undertaken a number of large LNG carriers, setting a record high and enhancing the competitiveness of domestic LNG carriers.
epilogue
Until today, Continental's LNG carriers are still developing, from the initial catch-up to the current leader, I believe that Continental will have higher achievements in the field of LNG carriers in the future.
At the same time, I also look forward to the completion of these large LNG ships, which will amaze the world.
Sources of information:
The financial sector - breaking the monopoly of South Korea, Chinese shipbuilders are snatching food! Hudong-Zhonghua won the order of 11 LNG carriers
Yicai.com - Chinese enterprises won the "big order" of Qatar Energy Company to build the world's first batch of largest LNG carriers
China Shipbuilding Industry Economic Research Center - South Korea's historical experience in developing LNG construction
The first state-built LNG carrier was delivered in Shanghai, a portal of the central government
Sina Finance – The pandemic has forced Qatar to divert oil and gas