In the autumn of 2003 Gaz de France ordered a 154,000 m3 LNG carrier to be built at the Alstom shipyard Chantiers de l’Atlantique in France. The ship was then going to be the largest LNG carrier in service and would be employed to carry liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Norway or Egypt, but was also designed for the alternative of trading on the spot market.

Wärtsilä solution
The ship is propelled by dual-fuel engines and electric propulsion. The heart of the system is four dual-fuel engines – three 12-cylinder and one 6-cylinder Wärtsilä 50DF – giving a combined output of 39.9 MW.

The basic propulsion solution for this LNG carrier uses dual-fuel engines for electric power generation. The electric power is supplied to an electric propulsion system, fairly similar to the diesel-electric propulsion systems on modern cruise ships. The solution offers LNG carriers a number of significant advantages. These include overall lower fuel consumption, fuel flexibility and lower emissions. As an indirect benefit, reduced fuel consumption and the use of lighter fuel (LNG is lighter than HFO) offers the possibility to increase the cargo carrying capacity of the ship substantially at a given displacement.