Liquefied natural gas ship LNG shipbuilding

In the good market situation, South Korean shipbuilding enterprises began to "pile up" in the field of LNG shipbuilding, in the original only three, namely, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding marine involved in the LNG shipbuilding market based on the Hanjin Heavy Industries, STX Shipbuilding, Hyundai Three Lakes Heavy Industries and the new formation of the Sungdong Shipbuilding 4 enterprises to participate in the LNG ship market, further pushing the market competition to a fever pitch. In recent years (until 2013), Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine have taken almost all the orders for large-scale LNG vessels in the international LNG vessel market, especially the orders for super-large-scale LNG vessels of 200,000 cubic meters or above have been taken by Samsung and Daewoo, and the share of the above three shipbuilders in the international LNG vessel market has already reached more than 80%. In order to further improve its competitiveness, Hyundai Heavy Industries has started to develop and innovate the flat-built LNG vessels based on the success of flat-built cruise ships and LPG vessels, and it is expected that the capacity of production and construction of LNG vessels will be up to 14 vessels. Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine are also expanding their LNG ship production capacity to 15 and 13 ships respectively.

From 1995 to 2000, Hanjin Heavy Industries built four LNG ships for domestic LNG importers. But after 2000, Hanjin Heavy Industries shifted its focus to large container ships and stopped building LNG vessels. Hanjin has since returned to the LNG shipbuilding market. STX Shipbuilding aims to surpass Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries and become a global shipbuilding company, so it has also listed LNG vessels as one of the key types of high-value-added vessels to be constructed, and in 2005, STX Shipbuilding established a collaborative relationship with GTT of France, which provides design and development technology for LNG vessels. In April this year, STX Shipbuilding cooperated with West African enterprises to undertake orders for four LNG vessels, with an average ship price of 250 million U.S. dollars each. STX Shipbuilding said that it will further strengthen its attack on LNG vessel orders in the international ship market in the future.

Sanho Heavy Industries, which has been mainly engaged in building various types of cruise ships and chemical product carriers (PCs) in the past, has also started to get involved in the construction of LNG carriers with the support of Hyundai Heavy Industries, and its current production and construction capacity of LNG carriers is three. The construction of the first LNG ship undertaken in the first quarter of this year has been officially started.

Chengdong Shipbuilding is a small shipyard developed to produce hull segments for large shipbuilding enterprises. It has grown rapidly in the last two years through mergers and acquisitions and local government support. It has also established a cooperative relationship with France's GTT, absorbing GTT's LNG ship-related technology, and will next compete in the LNG ship market.

South Korea is currently the world's strongest country in terms of LNG ship construction equipment capacity and actual construction capacity, but the core technology of his LNG ship comes from France's GTT, so for every LNG ship built, South Korean shipyards will have to pay about $10 million in royalties to GTT. Therefore, the South Korean government and ship companies are determined to join hands to cooperate, break through the technical difficulties, and develop the key technology of LNG ships belonging to South Korea itself.