On September 29, NYK signed long-term time-charter contracts for four newly built liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers with NOVATEK Gas & Power Asia Pte. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of PAO NOVATEK, through a joint venture with a group company of PAO Sovcomflot.

The newly built LNG carriers will be constructed at Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. and are slated for delivery from 2023 to 2024.

The vessels will be equipped with WinGD-made dual-fuel slow-speed diesel engines (i.e., X-DF diesel engines)* that have superior fuel-consumption efficiency and can operate on marine gas oil or boil-off gas stored in the cargo tank. Each ship will have a re-liquefaction unit on board that can use re-liquefied excess boil-off gas and return it to the cargo tank, in addition to a shaft generator system that uses the rotating propeller shaft for power generation.

Each vessel’s cargo tank will be a 174,000 cubic-meter-capacity membrane-type tank that will make use of advanced insulating materials** to suppress the boil-off rate (percentage of gas volume that vaporizes during navigation) in the cargo tank and realize superior efficiency and economical LNG transportation.

In accordance with its medium-term management plan “Staying Ahead 2022 with Digitalization and Green,” the NYK Group seeks to secure stable freight rates through long-term contracts and continue to encourage creative solutions in its efforts to contribute to stable energy transport services.