South Korea’s largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. is ready to apply its new liquefied natural gas (LNG)-reliquefaction system, which is expected to significantly improve energy efficiency, after winning safety approval from the country’s authority.

The shipbuilder said on Monday it has recently set up a new single mixed refrigerant (SMR) LNG re-liquefaction system at its Ulsan shipyard in the country’s southeast coast and received safety approval from Korea Gas Safety Corporation.

The SMR system, which has been jointly developed by United Kingdom-based Liquid Gas Equipment Ltd., uses refrigerant mixture to re-liquefy entire evaporated gas from an LNG carrier.

Hyundai Heavy Industries said the new system is an upgrade from its existing single refrigerant re-liquefaction system introduced in 2016, offering up to 40 percent higher energy efficiency. It is also easier to operate, it added. The boil-off gas rate that measures the amount of liquid evaporated during vessel operations is also only 0.017 percent, which is one third of its existing LNG partial re-liquefaction system, the company claimed.

Hyundai Heavy Industries plans to install the new SMR system in four LNG carriers Hyundai Heavy Industries is building for Greek and Russian shipping companies, orders that the Korean builder won last year.

An unnamed official from Hyundai Heavy Industries said the company can now provide a broad set of LNG carrier solutions to ship owners with the latest development of SMR re-liquefaction system on top of its LNG fuel supply system and LNG regasification system. The shipbuilder has won this year’s first LNG carrier building order based on advanced technology and it expects to clinch more large-scale LNG vessel orders, the official said.

Hyundai Heavy Industries, meanwhile, won orders to build 15 LNG tankers, including seven options, last year, accounting for more than 40 percent of the worldwide large-scale LNG carrier market, based on its high technology that has been approved by European and U.S. energy firms including Total S.A. and Enel SpA.

By Woo Je-yoon and Lee Eun-joo

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