Membrane technology of French liquefied natural gas containment system specialist GTT has been chosen for the tank design for six very large ethane carriers (VLEC) which would be built by the Korean shipyards Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI).
GTT said on Tuesday that the vessels would be built on behalf of Chinese-based Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical. The delivery of the vessels is scheduled from the fourth quarter of 2020 onwards.
The company’s Mark III membrane containment system was chosen for the design of the tanks. The design was optimized to significantly increase the capacity within the standard very large gas carriers (VLGC) overall dimensions.
The tanks offer more than 98,000 cbm of total cargo capacity with a limited draft. This second-generation of VLECs will be the world’s largest-ever built.
The company added that the tanks were designed to be multi-gas units with the ability to transport ethane and several other types of gas such as propylene, LPG, ethylene, as well as being “LNG ready.” It will offer them the possibility to carry LNG in the future without having to convert the cargo tanks.