QatarEnergy awards time charters for six LNG carriers

QatarEnergy has selected the joint venture of Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and China’s COSCO Shipping LNG Investment (Shanghai) (CSLNG) to own and operate six QC-Max size LNG vessels.

The six vessels will be built in China by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). These vessels are the last batch of the 128 LNG vessels in QatarEnergy’s historic shipbuilding program, made up of 104 conventional and 24 QC-Max size ultra-modern vessels.

The MOL-CSLNG joint venture has already entered long-term time charter party agreements with QatarEnergy for seven conventional LNG vessels, executed in 2022, giving the joint venture a total of 13 long-term TCPs under QatarEnergy’s LNG fleet expansion program.

Both QatarEnergy and Hudong-Zhonghua claim that the ships to be built by the latter will be among the largest LNG carriers to be built. Each will have a total cargo capacity of 271,000 cubic metres, an LOA of 344 metres, a beam of 53.6 metres, a depth of 27.2 metres, and a design draught of 12 metres. The ships will also be fitted with low-speed, dual-fuel engines.