Japan’s shipping major NYK Line has revealed it has hired South Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) to build four new liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.

As informed, the new vessels will be equipped with WinGD-made dual-fuel slow-speed diesel engines 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,” according to NYK Line.

The value of the contract is KRW 959.3 billion (about $809.2 million).

On 29 September, NYK Line signed time charter contracts for these 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 ships are slated for delivery between 2023 and 2024.

In July 2021, NYK Line took delivery of LNG carrier Diamond Gas Victoria built at Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.