China\u2019s first ice-breaking tanker capable of carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the icy Arctic waters all-year round at minus 50 degrees temperatures, has officially been launched.<\/p>\n
The Arc7 ice class vessel, developed by China\u2019s Guangzhou Shipyard International, was given the name Boris Sokolov during a ceremony in South China\u2019s Guangdong province on Tuesday. The vessel boasts the \u201cunique\u201d ability to operate in harsh Arctic winter even in temperatures below -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit), according to local media citing deputy general manager of the shipyard.<\/p>\n
The ship can carry 44,500 tons of cargo and has ice-breaking tools at both ends of the vessel, allowing it to cut through 1.8 meter thick ice and ice ridges below 15 meters (50ft).<\/p>\n
The 214 meter long and 34 meter wide tanker was designed for Greek shipowner Dynacom and is to be used for the $27 billion Yamal LNG project in Russia\u2019s Arctic. The project began operations last December in Russia\u2019s northwest Siberia and has already shipped two million tons of LNG.<\/p>\n
In November, a tanker of a similar class to the newly-launched Chinese ship successfully reloaded an LNG cargo delivered from the Yamal LNG facility to the lower ice-class designated tanker \u2018Pskov\u2019. The reloaded liquefied gas will be delivered to customers in Northwest Europe, according to independent Russian gas producer and major Yamal LNG\u2019s stakeholder Novatek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China\u2019s first ice-breaking tanker capable of carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the icy Arctic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n