The Safety Topic of “Oil to Gas”

Reporter Yang Peiju

A s a new type of energy, LNG has aroused strong repercussions in the shipping market.The reason for this is that compared with traditional fuel, LNG has certain advantages both in energy conservation and emission reduction and in fuel costs.However, it can not be ignored that as a new type of energy, it has also drawn close attention on its safety.If there is LNG leakage, when get burned, there will likely be explosions, bringing huge potential risks to waterborne transportation safety.Therefore, under the circumstances of vigorous promotion of LNG ships in the industry, we need to have a correct and comprehensive cognition of its safety.

The public and industry cognition of the safety of LNG ships indicates that there still need to strengthen promotion and eliminate misunderstandings.As regards this, Fan Yunzhi, the senior engineer of the Technology Management Department of CCS believes that the public and industry’s cognition of LNG is different.The government worries that once there is LNG leakage, and an explosion and fire is incurred,the safety of ship and navigation will be affected, and therefore the risks posed by LNG is always stressed;in ship owners’ view, which is from the aspect of economy, the experience of LNG application on vehicles and the technical standards of related products are mature and the application of LNG for ships will not be too risky, stressing economy while ignoring risks.Therefore, the industry should have an objective view about the safety of LNG ships,which is conducive for the healthy and consistent development of this industry.

Wang Zhigang, the General Manager of Wuhan Branch believes that judging from the current situation, there is a trend of doing things separately by governments at all levels and various enterprises.What is common is that all of them are eager to achieve success and have benefits by swarming in blind conversion.However,due to insufficient market entry mechanism, the safety of ships will be affected in those cases where the condition of ships is poor, the equipment is not in good condition, the resources of conversion yard is limited, the capability of design institute is low and the examination is not strict.If such situation is not effectively controled, just like the “low quality ships”which was prevalent a few years ago, there will be the vicious circle of “disorderly market—management and rectification—waste of resources.” The industry and the government should give attention to this problem.

As regards this, Gan Shaowei, the Director Assistant of Wuhan Rules and Research Institute believes that there is an urgent need at present to improve management system, clarify the main responsible bodies, strengthen technical foundations and ensure safe and orderly LNG conversion work.

Firstly, speed up the development of evaluation criteria for the condition suitable for LNG/diesel hybrid power conversion, set strict standards for design, conversion and inspection and increase industry entry threshold.Related qualification approval shall be introduced for people employed in the industry, ships, marine products and companies.Necessary technical and quality benchmark shall be set to safeguard the safety and quality of the industry chain.

Secondly, the industry shall carry out joint research on LNG safety risks and tests and establish the risk assessment model suitable for marine LNG fuel on the basis of the result of theoretical research and test and thereby provide technical support to the assessment of LNG risks and the establishment of risk control measures.

Thirdly, the technical shipping standards related to LNG shall be improved, the technical research outcome of LNG ships accumulated so far shall be incorporated into the technical standards system.At the same time, ship survey bodies shall strengthen the inspection control of trial ships, carry out strictly the inspection of technical condition of trial ships and scientific proof of conversion plan.

In addition, the industry shall strengthen technical cooperation and provide guidance to safe development.Industry standard is an important part of GBS, but at present with marine standard being incomplete, most of the important marine LNG products are using the standards for land products.Take gas fuel engines for an example, there is no specific standards for the gas fuel in the aspect of test bed, sailing and the mooring test program, emission test standard, etc.Therefore, CCS should work closely with the industry to supplement CCS rules and develop the technical standard for marine LNG products, on the other hand,to promote the technical advancement of marine LNG products and lay the foundation for the smooth implementation of the rules.

Luo Xiaofeng, the Director of Wuhan Rules and Research Institute believes, there is risk for LNG being used as fuel for ships, however, the technical means that we already have will be able to put various risks under control.The development of LNG ships can not be reversed.Going along with this development will bring prosperity, if not, the opportunity for development will be missed.