Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Group became the world’s first shipyard to construct an LNG-fueled very large container ship (VLCS), taking the lead in building eco-friendly vessels.

Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries (HSHI) announced it has recently completed gas trials of the 14,800 TEU container ship that it built for Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping (EPS) in the presence of some 130 people, including those from the shipowner and the classification society. The delivery is due on September 15.

With a length of 366m, a breadth of 51m and a depth of 29.9m, this HSHI-constructed vessel marks the world’s first VLCS operating on LNG.

Notably, it is equipped with a 12,000㎥-class large LNG fuel tank, giving the vessel enough fuel capacity for an Asia-Europe round trip on a single filling. The tank is composed of 9% nickel steel which has superior strength and impact toughness even at a cryogenic temperature (-163 °C).

The ship is also outstanding in terms of safety and container loading efficiency thanks to the optimal layouts and designs applied to the LNG fuel tank, fuel gas supply system (FGSS) and dual-fuel engine.

It marks the first in a series of six LNG-fueled ships of the same size and type that HSHI has been constructing over the past years after signing an agreement with EPS in April 2018, with the last delivery scheduled for the third quarter of 2022.

“In a similar way that electric vehicles nowadays stand in the spotlight in the auto industry, eco-friendly vessels like LNG-fueled ships do in the shipbuilding industry,” said an official of HHI Group. “We are poised to consolidate our position as the trailblazer in this segment, winning the trust of more and more customers backed by our technical prowess and highest quality standards.”

To date, HHI Group has won orders to build a total of 44 vessels operating on LNG, including bulk carriers, tankers and container ships, earning the No. 1 spot in global shipbuilding orders. Further, in July 2018, the Group became the world’s first to successfully deliver an LNG-fueled 114,000-ton class large crude carrier, which was crowned as the winner of the Next Generation Ship Award at Nor-Shipping 2019 held in Oslo, Norway, one of the three largest international maritime fairs in the world.