China will build five liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers in the next three years to cope with rising demand for the import, according to a ship maker here on Monday.

The second China-made LNG tanker was launched on Monday in Shanghai. The producer, the Hudong China Ship Manufacturing (Group) Co. Ltd, said, it will build five more such tankers to ease the country's tranportation bottleneck for the LNG import.

Built at a cost of 160 million U.S. dollars, the LNG tanker has a carrying capacity of 147,000 cubic meters of LNG, which is sealed under a temperature condition of 163 degree Celsius below zero during transportation.

China rolled off the first self-developed LNG tanker last year.

There is a big market shortfall for LNG in China. The thirst is expected to continue to the year 2010. So far, LNG consumption only accounted for 1.9 percent of China's total energy mix, which lags far behind the world's averaged level of 25 percent.

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