JULY 16, 2013 — Six 174,000 cu.m LNG carriers being built in Chinese shipyards will each be powered by five MAN 51/60DF dual-fuel engines is a significant development for both Chinese shipyards as well as the LNGC market. The engines are IMO Tier II-compliant in diesel mode and in gas mode will have lower exhaust-gas emissions than set by IMO Tier III. MAN Diesel & Turbo says that fuel-sharing mode will be applied to each unit.

The customer is a consortium formed by Sinopec Kantons, MOL and Shanghai-based CSLNG, a daughter company of China Shipping.

The ships will DFDE (dual-fuel diesel electrical)-driven, providing the customer with the optimum redundancy. They will be the first large LNG carriers with a DFDE configuration built in China.

The vessels will be constructed at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard located in Shanghai at the Jiangnan Changxing Production Line No.1, now the responsibility of Hudong, following parent group China State Shipbuilding Corporation's (CSSC) re-organisation of production facilities.

When delivered, the ships will load LNG in Gladstone, Australia for a number of Chinese import terminals –Qingdao, Beihai, Tianjin, Lianyungang and Wenzhou.

Steel cutting on the first ship will be in January 2014. The sixth ship will be delivered from the shipbuilder in the fourth quarter, 2017.

MAN Diesel & Turbo reports that the engines will be designed and built in Augsburg, Germany.

Fuel-sharing mode

Fuel Sharing Mode (FSM) describes the operation of a dual-fuel engine with a mixture of fuel gas (NG, NBOG) and fuel oil (MGO, MDO or HFO) at a certain ratio.

All cylinders operate at the same fuel-sharing ratio simultaneously.

"This order is yet another success for the 51/60DF's fuel-sharing capability, a special feature and one of the reasons we have especially focused on LNG carrier applications with the 51/60DF unit," says MAN Diesel & Turbo's Erwin Boijmans, Sales Manager – Marine Medium Speed business unit, Augsburg. "This Chinese order comes on the back of another milestone LNGC order with the same configuration we recently landed in Japan and augurs well for the future."

FSM offers several advantages, including:

• full load with low quality of fuel gas (LHV, MN)
• full load with low quantity of fuel gas
• full load with high ambient air temperature
• retrofit "DF-light" (gas mode without pilot fuel system)