A keel laying ceremony was held on March 24 for Stolt-Nielsen’s two small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers at the Keppel Nantong Shipyard in China.
The two 7,500-cbm capacity LNG carriers, currently known as hull H400 and H401, will also have ship-to-ship bunkering capability.
To remind, Keppel Offshore & Marine’s unit, Keppel Singmarine won the contract worth a total of S$103 million ($78.8 m) back in May 2016.
Keppel Singmarine is building the LNG vessels for Stolt-Nielsen Gas, a unit of Stolt-Nielsen.
According to the Oslo-listed shipowner Stolt-Nielsen, the two LNG carriers are scheduled to be delivered in the second and third quarter of 2019.
Once delivered, the ships would start serving two small-scale LNG projects Stolt-Nielsen Gas is developing in Italy and the UK.
The first is a joint venture called Higas which includes the construction of an LNG terminal and distribution facility in the port of Oristano, Sardinia.
Stolt-Nielsen Gas plans to source and ship the LNG to the terminal using small-scale carriers, and then distribute the fuel to customers via trucks and tank containers.
The second project is with Flogas Britain which plans to provide LNG to areas of Scotland not served by the existing natural-gas grid.
Stolt-Nielsen Gas would ship the LNG on small-scale carriers to a new terminal to be built in the Port of Rosyth or onwards distribution by Flogas, according to Stolt-Nielsen’s 2017 annual report.
LNG World News Staff