HD Hyundai Heavy Industries announced on February 28, 2025 that it plans to conduct a demonstration project to recover the evaporation gas from a 7,900 TEU LNG-powered container ship under construction in April and use it as an energy source within the business site.
LNG charged for the test run of an LNG propulsion ship that uses LNG as fuel for ships naturally vaporizes and evaporates within the fuel tank. This evaporation gas increases the pressure of the fuel tank. While ships in operation can recover the evaporation gas and use it as fuel, ships under construction must periodically discharge it to the atmosphere to manage the pressure in the fuel tank.
The evaporation gas is methane, one of the major greenhouse gases. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE) and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries established the ‘Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Plan during Construction of LNG-fueled Ships’ as a national project of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in 2023.
HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering came up with the concept of recycling LNG-fueled ship evaporation gas into onshore city gas, and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries made it concrete and created an environment where evaporation gas emitted from ships under construction can be recovered and consumed as city gas within the workplace.
However, due to the absence of related laws and standards for self-consumption of evaporation gas under the ‘City Gas Business Act’ in Korea, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries applied for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s regulatory sandbox demonstration special case to carry out this project, and received conditional approval from the 4th ‘Industrial Convergence Regulatory Special Case Review Committee’ of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on October 23, 2024 (No. 496). The demonstration special case period is 2 years from March 31, 2025 to March 30, 2027.
Afterwards, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries consulted with the Korea Gas Safety Corporation, a domestic city gas inspection agency, and derived the ‘Demonstration Special Case Safety Standard’ to secure stability during the demonstration special case (January 21, 2025, subject to regulatory special case approval condition), and met the conditions for the commencement of the demonstration special case by newly subscribing to gas accident compensation liability insurance to compensate for human and material damages that may occur due to the demonstration special case project.