China State Shipbuilding Corp announced on June 9 that it has started constructing the world's largest and most capable liquefied natural gas carrier.

The State-owned conglomerate said in a statement that the first in the QC-Max class, which is yet to be named, entered the construction phase at the premises of the company's Shanghai-based subsidiary Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, marking a milestone in a historic deal between CSSC, the world's largest shipbuilder, and Middle East energy giant QatarEnergy.

In April 2024, CSSC won a contract for 18 QC-Max superheavy LNG tankers from QatarEnergy, the world's largest LNG provider. The two signed a deal for another six QC-Max ships months later.

The contracts, with a total value exceeding 56 billion yuan ($8.27 billion), represent the world's largest shipbuilding order on record.

According to CSSC, each of the carriers measures 344 meters in length, 53.6 meters in width and 12 meters in draft, with a cargo capacity of 271,000 cubic meters of LNG.

The volume of natural gas carried by a single QC-Max tanker can meet the gas consumption demand of 4.7 million households in Shanghai for one month.

Huang Huabing, deputy chief constructor of LNG carriers at the shipyard, said the QC-Max project now stands as one of the iconic landmarks in the country's path toward becoming a world-leading shipbuilding power.

Against the backdrop of a volatile geopolitical landscape and complex global economic and trade environment, the project has significantly boosted confidence among domestic and international players in the entire LNG industry, he added.

Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding embarked on its LNG tanker development program in 1997 and secured its first order in 2004. In 2008, China's first domestically built LNG carrier, Dapeng Sun, was completed and delivered at the Shanghai shipyard.

To date, the shipyard has built and delivered 62 LNG carriers. According to Chen, it completed construction of 13 large LNG carriers in 2025 alone and delivered 11 of them.