Growth Market LNG

One of the coldest substances is LNG – natural gas cooled to
-165 ° C and liquefied. Cooling reduces the volume of the gas to one six hundredth of its original size so that the gas is transportable. LNG is transported in special, very large tankers, of which there are around 180 in use around the world; a further 20 are built each year.

Loading arms of up to 30 m high with a pipe diameter of up to 500 mm are used to load the LNG from land-based storage facilities on to such tankers. Through its superior technology, SVT is the world’s second biggest supplier of such equipment.

Experts forecast that gas will quickly become the most important energy source in the world over the next 20 years; at today’s rate of consumption, global reserves should last another 150 years. The main suppliers are Algeria, Egypt, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran and Qatar. Currently most of the natural gas is transported by pipeline which inevitably leads to economic and political dependencies. To reduce this level of dependency in the future, there has been increased talk of transporting more gas by ship as LNG, thereby reducing dependency on pipelines. In Europe, these efforts have been given new impetus by the Russian/Ukrainian dispute over gas prices. Eon is currently planning to build an LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven.

backtop print version