Athlos

No other tracked vessel shares this yard, delivery year and capacity.

• LNG carrier anatomy

  An LNG carrier is a ship built around insulated cargo tanks that hold liquefied gas at minus 162 degrees, with an engine able to burn the cargo vapour that inevitably boils off during the voyage.

• Ship classes: conventional, Q-Flex, Q-Max and small-scale

  LNG carriers fall into recognised size classes running from small-scale vessels under 30,000 cubic metres, through the 174,000 cubic metre conventional standard, to the 266,000 cubic metre Q-Max ships built for Qatar.

• Boil-off and reliquefaction

  Boil-off is the small fraction of an LNG cargo that evaporates each day as heat leaks into the tanks, and it is what keeps the rest of the cargo cold.

• The voyage cycle: laden, ballast, heel and the return

  The LNG voyage cycle is the round trip of a laden leg carrying cargo and a ballast leg returning empty, with a small heel of LNG retained throughout to keep the tanks cold enough to load again on arrival.