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04-07-2007
China's
first liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier is
expected to go into operation by the end of
this year, a senior official with the country's
first LNG shipping company said on Sunday.
The
new tanker, with 147,000 cubic metres, or nearly
70,000 tonnes, of LNG storage capacity, will
partly replace the shipping service currently
provided by foreign companies on the Guangdong-Australia
route, said Xu Jianping, a deputy general manager
of China LNG Shipping Company (CLNG).
China's
first LNG terminal in southern China's Guangdong
province began to take in the clean fuel from
Australia in May last year. It is jointly owned
by China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC)
and BP and can handle 3.7 million tonnes of
gas a year.
CLNG
has ordered two more tankers of the same size
for the Guangdong project, with one expected
to be delivered in mid-2008 and another by the
end of 2008, Xu said at an oil conference in
Shanghai.
The
company has also booked two similar-sized LNG
carriers for a project in neighbouring Fujian
province, with one delivery set for mid-2009
and another by the end of that year, Xu said.
The
CNOOC-run Fujian project, with a capacity of
2.6 million tonnes a year, will start to receive
gas from Indonesia in early 2009.
Xu
said CLNG had also submitted orders to a Shanghai
shipyard to build tankers for a planned LNG
facility in Shanghai. He did not specify the
ships' sizes.
The
Shanghai project, set for operation in 2009
and with initial capacity of 1.1 million tonnes,
is jointly run by CNOOC and Shanghai's Shenergy
Group Ltd..
The
Shanghai facility has secured gas sources from
Malaysia.
CLNG
is a joint venture between China Ocean Shipping
(Group) Company, China's largest maritime carrier,
and China Merchants Group, a Chinese conglomerate
registered in Hong Kong.
CNOOC,
a leader in China's LNG market, is China's third-largest
oil producer and the parent of Hong Kong- and
New York-listed CNOOC Ltd..
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