Huang Guoliang talks with a CCTV reporter at the maiden voyage ceremony of Pan Asia, October 14, 2017. (Screenshot from CCTV)
"Pan Asia", China's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, was put into service in Shanghai yesterday.
With a length of 290 meters and a width of 46.95 meters, it is similar to an aircraft carrier in size and is now China's largest LNG carrier.
"This tanker showcases the peak of China's ship building technology," Huang Guoliang, manager of the Pan Asia project, told CCTV.
Huang Guoliang talks with a CCTV reporter at the maiden voyage ceremony of Pan Asia, October 14, 2017. /Screenshot from CCTV
The tanker can carry 174,000 cubic meters of LNG, which can gasify into 107 million cubic meters of natural gas.
In other words, it can supply enough gas for the consumption of 600,000 households for a year, if the average consumption of each household is approximately 15 cubic meters.
"We're building three more of this type," Huang added. "The shipping capacity will exceed 6 million tons."
That's one quarter of all the clean energy sources imported to China in 2016.
In the past few years, China has seen a large increase in the growth of LNG imports. The import volume in the first half of 2017 totaled 22.3 billion cubic meters, increasing by 38 percent year-on-year.
