South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries hosted a naming ceremony for two 174,000-cbm LNG carriers built as part of the massive QatarEnergy shipbuilding program.
One vessel was named “Sharq” after an area east of Doha, Qatar’s capital, while the other was dubbed “Shra’ouh” after a Qatari island, according to a statement by Japan’s NYK.
These are the seventh and eighth LNG carriers built by a consortium comprising NYK, K Line, Malaysia’s MISC, and China’s CLNG for QatarEnergy. These vessels are equipped with an X-DF 2.1 iCER engine and a reliquefaction device that effectively uses surplus boil-off gas. Sharq is scheduled to begin transporting LNG worldwide in December, while Shra’ouh is scheduled to commence service in January 2026. NYK will provide ship-management services for Shra’ouh.
Before this, China’s Hudong-Zhonghua hosted a naming ceremony in October for the fifth and sixth LNG carriers built by this consortium for QatarEnergy. Last year, QatarEnergy completed its massive LNG shipbuilding program, which includes the construction of 128 vessels. The program comprises 104 conventional and 24 QC-Max size ultra-modern vessels.
South Korean yards and China’s Hudong-Zhonghua will construct these 104 conventional vessels. Under the program, HD Hyundai Heavy will build 34 174,000-cbm LNG carriers, Samsung Heavy will build 33 vessels, Hanwha Ocean will build 25 vessels, while Hudong-Zhonghua will construct 12 ships.
