An LNG ship industry alliance was established during the LNG ship industrial chain development convention held at Shanghai's Changxing Island, part of the city's efforts to build a world-class shipbuilding and offshore engineering industry cluster, according to official sources.

Being the birthplace of China's modern shipbuilding industry, Shanghai saw the scale of its shipbuilding and offshore industry reach 100.7 billion yuan ($14.36 billion) in 2023, and Changxing Island has become the nation's first demonstration base of the sector, with its shipbuilding and offshore engineering industrial output exceeding 51 billion yuan and gathering a slew of large shipyards and marine equipment manufacturing enterprises, the local news portal Shanghai Observer reported.

Taking the lead in China's liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier's research and manufacturing, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co Ltd has in the past 27 years completed the innovation and development of five generations of LNG carriers, and its products cover the complete industrial chain of LNG, said Song Wei, chief engineer at Hudong-Zhonghua, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC).

According to Song, Hudong-Zhonghua has so far received orders for building more than 100 LNG storage and transportation facilities, and more than 40 ships of them have been delivered.

Earlier in late April, the shipbuilder received orders of building 18 LNG carriers with a capacity of holding 271,000 cubic meters of LNG, which is the world's largest single order of ships.

The shipyard received another six units of the ultra large vessels on Sept 11, making its total order of the special vessel reach 24.