News

« In this edition, GTT is presenting our latest evolution of the Mark III Flex technology. It was introduced in 2011 to give ship-owners the option of a further reinforced insulation system from specific applications (eg off-shore platforms) or a reduced guaranteed daily Boil-Off rate down to 0.085%Volume/day. 47 vessels have been delivered with this system.

The latest version, the Mark III Flex+, introduces an increased insulation thickness form 400mm to 480mm and an enhanced secondary barrier arrangement. The guaranteed daily Boil-Off Rate is reduced to 0.07%V/day. General Approval has been received in September and shipyards can now propose this containment system to the market.

This new evolution of Mark III allows GTT to revisit, in parallel, the Mark V system, which has undergone some delays due to our wish to re-validate the system. This will in turn postpone its general availability to the market. The delay is due to the discovery of a convection phenomenon on a laboratory prototype tank which was higher than expected during the initial phase of the project.

GTT has also recognised that the incremental cost in the Mark V system is such that it is not as competitive as we would wish in today’s market conditions. We will therefore use this additional time to seek improvements in the cost structure in order to supply an affordable, competitive system to meet the current market requirements.

In addition, in this issue we will highlight the work that was carried out on the validation of the ice-breaking vessels for Yamal (the first vessel, the Christophe de Margerie has been delivered recently), the development of an LNG fueled bulk carrier with Arista, and GTT’s ability to carry our specific studies looking at Boil-Off generation during ship to ship transfers. »

Philippe Berterottière, Chairman and CEO

In this issue:

• TECHNOLOGIES / Mark III Flex+
• TECHNOLOGIES / NO96 Max
• LNG AS A FUEL SOLUTIONS / Project FORWARD for ARISTA SHIPPING
• INNOVATION/ YAMAL LNG Arctic Vessel
• OPERATIONS/ Boil-off Gas Studies: an operational-oriented answer for in-service vessels