Wärtsilä wins contracts for LNG ships

Finnish corporation Wärtsilä was awarded two new contracts on Monday for regasification units by South Korean shipyard, Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI).

The systems are to be installed on floating storage and regasification unit vessels owned by Norway’s Höegh LNG and Russian energy company Gazprom. The regasification unit promised to Gazprom will be specially outfitted to withstand winter temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius. Both units will use seawater for heating the LNG, a process which results in fewer carbon emissions than steam heating.

The contract between Wärtsilä and HHI, signed in July, also includes an option for a third vessel, also to be operated by Höegh. The partnership between the world’s largest shipbuilder and the Finnish marine and power corporation extends back to 1975. In 2014, Wärtsilä provided HHI with an open-loop scrubber system for an LPG vessel operated by Norwegian firm Solvang ASA.

“Wärtsilä has a major share of the large energy demand market, which is a direct result of the reliability and efficiency of our systems. The global demand for LNG is rapidly increasing, and Wärtsilä’s experience and expertise throughout the entire LNG value chain is a key factor in the marine sector’s adoption of gas based technologies,” vice-president of Wärtsilä’s Flow and Gas Solutions, Timo Koponen, said in a press release.