Multiple records have just been broken for an LNG-powered ship, as construction completed at Heerema’s “Sleipnir” heavy-lift vessel (charted above). It substantiates our recent deep-dive note, which sees 40-60MTpa upside to LT LNG demand, from large, fuel-intensive ships, after IMO 2020.
Sleipnir is a record-setting crane-lift vessel, with capacity to pick up 20,000T. This eclipses the prior records in offshore oil and gas, which were around 12,000T, set by the Heerema Thialf and the Saipem 7000. Hence Sleipnir has already lined up 18 contracts, starting with the 15,800T topsides for Israel’s Leviathan gas field, and progressing on to Johan Sverdrup Phase II.
Sleipnir is a record-setting LNG vessel, burning gas as its primary fuel (although it can also burn diesel). With a displacement of 273,700T, we estimate it is the heaviest LNG-powered vessel ever built (eclipsing the largest such container ships, at 220,000T). With a cost of $1.5bn, we estimate it is also the most expensive LNG-powered ship ever built (eclipsing Carnival’s $1.1bn AidaNova cruise ship). It has the world’s first Type-C LNG tank in an enclosed column. Numbers are updated in our data-file here.
There is upside to LNG demand in large, fuel-intensive ships, especially cruise- and container ships, after IMO 2020. Small-scale LNG may offer an economic “bridge”, while bunkering becomes increasingly attractive as volumes per port scale past c80kTpa. Forward-thinking Majors are already investing to capture the future market.
Finally, for a video of the construction vessel being constructed…