SIMIC

According to Alphaliner, the containerised natural gas carrier Tiger Longkou, intended to be operated by Wang's Tiger Gas, has gone on charter to Shandong International Transportation Corporation (SITC).

The novel ship - designed to move LNG in tank containers - was delivered by Yangzijiang Shipbuilding in China last month. The second of four 25,000 dwt gas carriers was delivered earlier this month with the other two due out of the yard also in 2022.

The shallow draft Tiger Longkou has a capacity to carry some 15,000 tonnes of gas in 690 forty-foot ISO tank boxes.

"Technically, the vessels are giant deck ships with a length of 192.00 m and a breadth of 37.60 m (15 rows). This means that they do not have any holds and all containers are carried on deck, secured by cell guide structures," said Alphaliner.

Tiger Gas' original plan was to deploy all four ships on a regular service between Malaysia and China, according to Singapore's Splash 247.

SITC has now put the new dual-fuel ship on a box service linking China with Japan.

"Today's ultra-strong liner market could very well prompt Tiger Gas to postpone their LNG supply chain project and put all four vessels on the container market," said Alphaliner.