Numéro : 2457 - Year : 2005
Design of large LNG carriers
Frédéric DEYBACH, GAZTRANSPORT et TECHNIGAZ, St Remy-les-Chevreuse (France)
Jean Le TALLEC, GAZTRANSPORT et TECHNIGAZ, St Remy-les-Chevreuse (France)
Mokrane YATAGHENE, GAZTRANSPORT et TECHNIGAZ, St Remy-les-Chevreuse (France)
Antoine MARES, GAZTRANSPORT et TECHNIGAZ, St Remy-les-Chevreuse (France)
The dramatic and fast depletion of the world’s crude oil reserves has urged the petroleum industry to invest in the valorisation of the huge reserves of stranded natural gas, which had been previously wasted by torching on site or re-injected to enhance crude oil production.
Since the turn of new millennium, demand for energy has grown to such an extent that the productions of OPEC have topped their ceilings capabilities, sending the price per barrel of oil skyrocketing well over US$50, for long periods of time.
The use of Natural gas is technically speaking the easiest and from the regulatory point of view the quickest mean of making-up for missing volumes of energies in world’s consumption needs. It is not then so absurd after all to think that demand for natural gas will grow to match the present level of all the crude oil traded worldwide, in the next quarter of a century.
The proven of natural gas reserves exceed those of crude oil. The largest proportions of gas reserves are geographically located within the same regions that already benefit from the largest share of crude oil reserves.
Crude oil is transported in the same form as it is extracted; while for economical reasons natural gas ought to be transformed and conditioned in cryogenic plants in order to increase its density by 600 times as the gas condenses to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Liquefaction is thus a process which concentrates the amount of energy per unit volume in order to achieve scale economies in its storage or transportation.
Obviously, the energy industry expects that the professionals of carriage of goods by sea to provide the most cost effective mean of marine transportation in order to enhance the market penetration of LNG in particular and natural gas at large. Invariably, these professionals will come to consider ships with larger and larger capacities to reduce the cost per unit good transported, the MMBTU in the specific case of LNG.
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