yard profile HHI builds its LNG reputation
South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries – the world’s largest shipbuilder – has a strong focus on LNG work
H
yundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has continued to demonstrate its ability to increase its market share, now claiming 15 per cent of the global market for its Shipbuilding Division. That is an impressive figure for a yard that this year marks the 40th anniversary of its first deliveries and which was set up by a construction company with no experience of shipbuilding.
Output passed the 10 million dwt in 1984 and this figure was doubled just four years later. By 1997, deliveries reached 50 million dwt, again doubling by 2005. To date, in excess of 1,800 ships have been supplied to over 260 owners and operators worldwide. HHI now operates in three main locations at Ulsan, Gunsam and Samho. The Ulsan shipyard at Mipo Bay, covers an area of approximately 1,800 acres stretching along 4km of coastline. Of this area, nearly 400 acres are occupied by workshops. The Ulsan yard is equipped to build a wide range of ships and has nine dry docks served by six high capacity cranes. HHI has an extensive
track record of
building LNG carriers, including vessels of up to 177,300m3 capacity, building a customer portfolio that includes major operators such as Mitsui and BP. It is also the only South Korean builder that can supply Moss type LNG carriers, having built 15 vessels of this design since 1994. HHI has recently taken an order for a further four 150,000m3 carriers for Petronas, Malaysia’s national oil company, with the first scheduled for delivery in 2016. These vessels
will have four tanks and a
double hull construction. At its Ulsan yard, LNG carrier construction
takes place in Docks 1 and 8, the former being 390m long, 80m wide and having the services of two high capacity Goliath cranes. Dock 3 is the largest in the shipyard and capable of being used to build vessels of up to 1million dwt. At 672m by 92m, it can cater for a range of ship types, as too can other docks at the yard, including VLCCs, naval ships and special purpose vessels. HHI’s Gunsan Shipyard, built
in 2008,
has an equally impressive range of facilities including a 1.3 million dwt drydock serviced
www.mpropulsion.com
HHI has delivered the first newbuilding FSRU, Independence, to Höegh LNG for operation in Lithuania (credit: Höegh LNG)
by a 1,650 tonne crane. It was designed to accommodate VVLCs and the facility was fully booked for production capacity in its first year of operation. But Gunsan, like other HHI yards, is also used for other vessels, including LNG carriers.
HHI can also build LNG carriers at its Samho shipyard, in the south-west of the Korea, which became part of the HHI group in 1999. Here, its facilities include both dry docks and an on-land building berth, which was used for an LNG newbuilding for the first time last year. In fact, it was the first time this technique had been used anywhere in the world for such a ship.
The construction principle used is to assemble the basic hull, LNG tanks and propulsion system on land before loading it onto a floating dock by a system of hydraulic skidding. Hyundai Samho has used this system previously for around 50 other vessels but LNG carriers weigh approximately 30 per cent more than other equivalent size application
vessels, which made this
of the technique noteworthy. HHI stated that this method of construction is more efficient and cost-effective than conventional methods.
The vessel, for Golar of Norway, was ordered in 2012 and will be delivered in July this year. With a capacity of 162,000m3, it measures 289m in length, 45m in width and 26m in depth. Following this first success, HHI plans to build between 10 and 12 further
vessels in this way, orders for which have already been secured.
HHI scored another world first in February when it named a newbuilding LNG floating storage regasification unit (LNG FSRU). It is the first of four, ordered at HHI’s Ulsan yard by Höegh LNG, with two more following this year and the fourth in March 2015. LNG FSRU are designed to receive LNG from LNG carriers and have a regasification system to deliver it to shore as gas. FSRUs cost half as much as an onshore LNG terminal and take a year less to complete, HHI said. They have dual-fuel propulsion systems so are also mobile and can be located wherever needed.
This first unit has been chartered for 10 years to Klaipedos Nafta and will be located in Lithuania’s Port of Klaipeda.
The 294m vessel has a volume of
170,000m3 with storage capacity for 70,000 tonnes of chilled natural gas. Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaité named the ship Independence, chosen “to reflect our government’s strong will toward energy independence,” she said.
Lee Jai-seong, chairman & CEO of HHI,
looked beyond this delivery to wider LNG opportunities. “We are pleased that the LNG FSRU will play a critical role in supplying LNG in Lithuania,” he said, “and we hope to keep up the close cooperation with Lithuania for the construction of energy infrastructure.” MP
Marine Propulsion I April/May 2014 I 33
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