Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. has delivered the ENSHU MARU (Kawasaki hull no. 1720), a 164,700 m3 capacity liquefied natural gas (LNG) transport vessel for use by Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. ("K" Line) and Tokyo Century Corporation.
The third of Kawasaki's line of 164,700 m3 capacity LNG carriers to be commissioned, this ship is designed to enable passage through the newly expanded Panama Canal, which opened for full operations in 2016. The vessel features standard LNG carrier hull dimensions in order to enable docking at major LNG terminals around the world while offering larger cargo tanks for increased transport capacity, thus cutting LNG transport costs and facilitating more flexible LNG trade operations by shipowners.
In addition, Kawasaki has made hull structure improvements to decrease overall ship weight and achieved a more optimal below-waterline hull design to fully optimize propulsive performance.
The new carrier is also equipped with a Kawasaki Advanced Reheat Turbine Plant (Kawasaki URA Plant)* as its main engine unit. This reheating-type steam-turbine propulsion plant developed by Kawasaki offers significant improvements to transport efficiency. Moving forward, Kawasaki will continue to pursue shipbuilding operations in light of the anticipated rise in demand for LNG and other clean-energy fuels.
