Harland And Wolff Building LPG Carriers For Service To U.S.

Two ships costing approximately $120 million, which will transport liquid petroleum gas (LPG) from Britain's giant Brent oil field to the United States, are to be built at the Belfast, Northern Ireland, yard of Harland and Wolff.

The order, the yard's first since 1974, will provide employment for 2,000 men for two years, and also safeguard jobs in other industries.

It has been placed by a new London leasing company which is to charter the two 58,000-cubicmeter- capacity vessels to Shell for 15 years.

The first is scheduled for delivery in April 1980, and the second before the end of that year.

Shell needs the ships to service a 10-year contract worth well over $850 million to supply the United States with more than six million tons of LPG.

Announcing the order during a visit to the yard, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said that the vessels would be the most technologically advanced in the world, and that they would involve new areas of technology for Harland and Wolff.

They will be the first carriers of this type built by the firm, though Harland has experience in building liquid natural gas (LNG) carriers. It built one of these about 10 years ago for carrying natural gas from Algeria to Britain.

The Belfast yard is currently building three tankers which will be the biggest yet produced in Britain. One of these, a 318,000- ton vessel for Shell is almost ready for trials. The other two tankers are even larger, being of 333,000 tons each.

Harland and Wolff is equipped with a one-million-ton building dock which has one of the world's largest overhead cranes. The dock can accommodate ships up to approximately 1,641 feet long.

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