Denmark’s Celsius Tankers is looking to further grow its fleet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers and plans to order new vessels in China, according to shipbuilding sources.
In December last year, Celsius Tankers, a unit of Celsius Shipping, announced an order at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries for two 180,000-cbm LNG carriers.
After that Celsius added another newbuild at the same yard and the firm now has nine 180,000-cbm newbuilds scheduled for delivery between 2023 and 2025.
Samsung Heavy already delivered four 180,000-cbm LNG tankers to Celsius in 2020 and 2021.
Now the company is working on its first LNG carrier order in China to further grow its fleet.
Celsius Tankers recently signed a letter of intent with China Merchants Heavy Industries in Jiangsu (CMHI Jiangsu) for the construction of new LNG carriers, sources told LNG Prime on Thursday.
The 4+2+2 contract is for 180,000-cbm LNG carriers each worth more than $230 million, one source said.
According to the source, the deliveries of the LNG carriers would start in the first quarter of 2026.
Also, the vessels would feature MAN ME-GA engines and GTT’s Mark III Flex containment system.
The source said that the final contract should by signed by the end of this year.
The China Merchants yard in Jiangsu recently won a license from GTT to construct large LNG carriers using GTT membrane technologies.
Should this order materialize, the yard would join Hudong-Zhonghua, the main LNG carrier shipbuilder in China, as well as Jiangnan Shipyard and Dalian Shipbuilding Industry (DSIC) in building large LNG carriers.
Jiangnan secured its first large LNG carrier order from Adnoc this year, while DSIC will build vessels for China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES) under its first order for large LNG tankers it won earlier this year as well.