Largest Ship Ever Built LNG Converter

[bobbymike]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30394137

I love stuff like this, big massive, we can do anything, engineering projects B)

 

[TomS]

As far as I can tell, it has no propulsion systems other than stationkeeping thrusters. So in effect, it's just an incredibly large barge. Impressive, but the late Seawise Giant still holds the record for largest actual ship ever built.

 

[sferrin]

These guys are pretty impressive as well. Furthermore, they're building 20 of them.

http://www.worldslargestship.com/

 

[fredymac]

I'm glad I don't work in high finance because I just don't understand the way the economy works.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Baltic Dry Index 1985–2013
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a number (in USD) issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. Not restricted to Baltic Sea countries, the index provides "an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea. Taking in 23 shipping routes measured on a timecharter basis, the index covers Handysize, Supramax, Panamax, and Capesize dry bulk carriers carrying a range of commodities including coal, iron ore and grain."


This chart is old but I don't think the numbers have recovered. The BDI reflects worldwide shipping demand. It's possible that using super large cargo ships cuts costs so building big helps in a down economy. But with gas prices hit hard by the removal of the US oil import demand (via fracking) I would think existing ships would still be competitive.

 

[bobbymike]

I'm glad I don't work in high finance because I just don't understand the way the economy works.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Baltic Dry Index 1985–2013
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a number (in USD) issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. Not restricted to Baltic Sea countries, the index provides "an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea. Taking in 23 shipping routes measured on a timecharter basis, the index covers Handysize, Supramax, Panamax, and Capesize dry bulk carriers carrying a range of commodities including coal, iron ore and grain."


This chart is old but I don't think the numbers have recovered. The BDI reflects worldwide shipping demand. It's possible that using super large cargo ships cuts costs so building big helps in a down economy. But with gas prices hit hard by the removal of the US oil import demand (via fracking) I would think existing ships would still be competitive.

Ocean going transport is incredible, well the whole free market is incredible, I had a client who purchased two Volvo Rock Trucks in France and shipped them to Seattle, it was cheaper to keep them on the boat all the way around through the Panama Canal than offload on the east coast and rail ship to Seattle. If I recall it about half the cost believe it or not. That was 10 years ago so I don't know if this is still the case.

 

[Hobbes]

This chart is old but I don't think the numbers have recovered. The BDI reflects worldwide shipping demand. It's possible that using super large cargo ships cuts costs so building big helps in a down economy. But with gas prices hit hard by the removal of the US oil import demand (via fracking) I would think existing ships would still be competitive.

The 'ship' linked to by Bobbymike is not a ship, but a relocatable gas processing plant. It'll be anchored in the same spot (on top of a large gas field) for 25 years. The only thing influencing its economic value is the price of LNG.

The container ships posted by Sferrin are not just larger, they're also a lot cheaper to operate than current large container ships (-20% or something in that region) due to more efficient propulsion, a lower design speed and their increased size. You could satisfy current demand with current container ships, but their high-speed propulsion means they're relatively expensive to operate.

 

[Rickshaw]

I'm glad I don't work in high finance because I just don't understand the way the economy works.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Baltic Dry Index 1985–2013
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a number (in USD) issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. Not restricted to Baltic Sea countries, the index provides "an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea. Taking in 23 shipping routes measured on a timecharter basis, the index covers Handysize, Supramax, Panamax, and Capesize dry bulk carriers carrying a range of commodities including coal, iron ore and grain."


This chart is old but I don't think the numbers have recovered. The BDI reflects worldwide shipping demand. It's possible that using super large cargo ships cuts costs so building big helps in a down economy. But with gas prices hit hard by the removal of the US oil import demand (via fracking) I would think existing ships would still be competitive.

This would I suspect have more to do with the super-large bulk ore carriers that have now been allowed to dock in China for the first time this year. The first of seven of these bulk ore carriers were built by Brazil in the ROK to transport iron ore from South America to the lucrative China market. Initially, as part of politics, it was not allowed to dock in Chinese ports because the Chinese were annoyed that they weren't getting any of the "action", so to speak. So, for the last 3 years or so, they've had to dock it offshore, in places like the Philippines and transload to smaller ships to get their ore to China. This has rather harmed the economics of the operation, as you can well imagine. Now that a deal has finally been negotiated with the Chinese shipping interests, to build more of the class in the PRC and so it's now going direct to Chinese ports.

The first of the line, MS Ore Brasil

These ships are intended to contest the price advantage Australia had in supply Iron Ore to the PRC because of it's relative closeness to there geographically. By shipping larger quantities, at a reasonable speed, the price of Ore from South America approaches that of the Australian ore.

Remember though, most of the world's shipping is not containerised and consists of bulk carriers, carrying diverse products such as grain, ore and so on.

 

[Triton]

I'm confused, is this really a ship or a barge/terminal?

 

[TomS]

The "ship" in the OP? A barge, absolutely.

The Triple E large container ships posted by sferrin and the Valemax bulk carriers posted by Kadija_Man are real ships.