South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries has officially started building a 174,000-cbm LNG carrier for Greek firm Minerva Gas, a unit of Minerva Marine.
Minerva Gas announced the steel-cutting ceremony via its social media on Sunday.
The ceremony for the LNG carrier with a hull name SN2653 took place on November 8.
Minerva Gas did not provide further information.
VesselsValue data shows that Minerva Gas ordered this LNG carrier and its sister vessel (SN 2652) in November 2022.
Sources said at the time that these vessels are expected to serve US energy giant ExxonMobil under charter deals.
Minerva Gas will pay about $215 million per vessel.
These ME-GA vessels feature GTT’s Mark III Flex containment system, and are scheduled for delivery in 2026.
Minerva Gas currently has five LNG operational LNG carriers.
In October 2022, Minerva Gas took delivery of the 174,000-cbm LNG carrier Minerva Amorgos from Samsung Heavy.
This is the final LNG carrier in a batch of three vessels SHI built for the Greek firm.
SHI delivered the 174,000-cbm Minerva Kalymnos in February 2021 followed by Minerva Chios in August the same year.
All of the sister LNG carriers feature WinGD’s X-DF propulsion and GTT’s Mark III Flex Plus containment system.
In addition to these three carriers, Minerva Gas took delivery of two LNG tankers from South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering.
The 173,400-cbm Minerva Limnos joined the fleet of Minerva Gas in June 2021, while its sister ship Minerva Psara started working with Shell in January 2020.
Both of these newbuilds feature MAN ME-GI propulsion, GTT’s NO96 containment tech, and a partial reliquefaction system.