Saga LNG Shipping's groundbreaking new ship is ready to work having passed its gas trials but remains without a charter, according to company officials.
The 45,000-cbm LNG carrier Saga Dawn (built 2019) is the first of a projected series based on the "A-Box" design, which is meant to disrupt the small and medium-sized LNG carrier sector.
Shanghai-based shipowner Saga LNG controlled by Norway's David Wu is betting that the simpler containment system — to be fabricated and installed into hulls that need not be built in specialist yards — can make LNG carriers significantly more economical to build and operate.
Planned series
Together with LNT Marine, the inventor and owner of the A-Box technology, Wu is planning to build a series of ships ranging from 12,000 cbm to 80,000 cbm for regional and sea-river distribution.
It recently also unveiled a 6,000-cbm design for bunkering and even has hopes to develop a full-sized 180,000-cbm vessel in collaboration with CSSC-owned Shanghai Merchant Ship Design & Research Institute.
The prototype, completed at the Jiangsu province yard of China Merchants Heavy Industry this spring, loaded a 2,300 cbm test cargo of LNG on 26 May at Shanghai LNG’s Wuhaogou terminal.
It's a big milestone. Now we are just waiting on the green light from the clients' side
Company official
After the three-week trial of tanks, engines, equipment and secondary barrier system, the first LNT A-Box carrier received a thumbs up from American Bureau of Shipping and is now ready to trade pending a final charter, said company officials.
Follow up order
"It's a big milestone," said a company official. "Now we are just waiting on the green light from the clients' side."
In April, Wu described the charterer that had fixed the ship for five years as “an international first tier company”, but Saga LNG now says there are two companies in negotiations, in each case for a five-year period, but the rate is confidential.
"I would not want to compare the rate to what the big LNG carriers are currently getting, but it will be what we need to take the ship out of the yard," said the official.
Yangtze River project
Now that the first ship is ready to trade, the company hopes to be able to place a follow-up order before year's end, but that depends on getting the ship on the water fixed. That should happen by mid-July, the company said.
TradeWinds reported last September on a Yangtze River import project that could see Saga LNG build two 80,000-cbm import vessels for trading downstream of Nanjing bridge.
That would be followed by four ships of 28,500 cbm for inland distribution upriver as far as Wuhan, and two of 12,000 cbm with four metre drafts capable of trading upriver to Yueyang, near the Three Gorges Dam.
