OREANDA-NEWS. January 22, 2014. The LNG stainless-steel double-layer cryogenic spherical tank (2,500 cubic meters) in Lichuan City of Hubei Province passed through the inspection on various technical indicator and quality by the employer and the representative of the Third Party Organization.

This works was undertaken by China First Metallurgical Construction Group (CFMCC Group) for Zhangjiagang CIMC Sanctum Cryogenic Equipment Co., Ltd. According to the inspection results, all the indicators were in compliance with the requirements of the specification, marking that the largest such sphere of China was smoothly completed.

As one of the key facilities for the West-East Natural Gas Transmission Project, it is the atmospheric vessel of the third category, which is manufactured with mixture structure of LNG stainless-steel inner tank (62 pieces) and carbon-steel outer tank (78 pieces).

The inner tank is designed with a diameter of 17m, a wall thickness of 20mm and a temperature of -196?. The most distinguished feature of this sphere is the double layer, which means there is a carbon-steel sphere at the outside of the stainless-steel inner tank, with a distance of 1.32m. The space between the two tanks is filled with pearlite for heat insulation.

The major function of this sphere is that, in case of small utilization volume, the natural gas can be put into liquidation for reservation, in case of large utilization volume, the gas can be transformed into gaseous state and delivered into the gas supply network, which could meet the energy demand of the city. The sphere calls for very strict requirements on manufacturing process, and is deemed to be China’s largest LNG Austenite stainless-steel cryogenic spherical tank with the thickest shell.