Fine on France's GTT to aid South Korean dockyards in building LNG carriers, save on licensing costs

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC)’s 12.52 billion won fine on Gaztransport & Technigaz (GTT) S.A. is expected to help Korean shipyards build LNG carriers faster and save up to 10 billion won per vessel on licensing costs.

The antitrust agency found France's GTT, the world’s largest LNG cargo containment system provider, to have forced Korean LNG vessel builders to purchase its technical assistance services in addition to license transactions for LNG cargo containment technology.

According to Park Moo-hyun, a market researcher at Hana Financial Investment, GTT exercised excessive control over the LNG carrier manufacturing process, even though it had no experience of building vessels or installing LNG tanks.

GTT owns core technologies for designing membrane-type LNG tanks.

LNG tanks must be designed to maintain cryogenic conditions of minus 162 degrees Celsius to avoid an explosion.

Consequently, Korean shipyards relied on GTT's patented technology because vessel owners preferred the membrane-type LNG tank and are reluctant to shift to new containment technologies.

South Korean shipbuilders have been developing LNG cargo containment technology to replace GTT's.

In 2017, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering introduced the Solidus LNG tank, which provides a daily LNG boil-off rate (BOR) of 0.049 percent, far lower than the GTT Mark III Flex Plus system`s 0.07 BOR.

Samsung has KCS, which is on par with GTT’s technology.