1. A Market Under Expansion
Global LNG trade continues to accelerate. According to the IEA Gas 2025 outlook, LNG trade is projected to grow by more than 5% year-on-year (about 29 bcm) in 2025 and to quicken to roughly 7% (about 40 bcm) in 2026, as new liquefaction capacity ramps up and Asia returns to import growth. Small-scale distribution, bunkering, power generation, and import terminals in locations disconnected from the pipeline grid are all expanding in parallel.
This volume growth exposes a bottleneck: conventional fixed jetties, quays, and trestles are capital-intensive, slow to permit, environmentally disruptive, and inflexible once built. In deep water, shallow water, environmentally sensitive coasts, or regions that were previously deemed unfeasible, traditional shore infrastructure can no longer keep pace with demand.
2. The Jettyless Paradigm Led by ECONNECT Energy
The Norwegian technology provider ECONNECT Energy has pioneered the answer: its IQuay™ semi-submersible floating platform performed the world’s first LNG transfer without a fixed jetty in 2017 ECOnnect Energy. The approach removes dredging, quay construction, and permanent marine works; the platform floats, follows the tide, can be relocated, and connects carriers ranging from small vessels up to ~266,000 m³ ECOnnect Energy.
Across this jettyless architecture, one element carries the actual product between vessel and platform, shore, or another vessel: the floating cryogenic LNG hose. It is the flexible, fatigue-resistant connection that makes jettyless transfer safe and operable in sheltered and harsh conditions alike.
3. Why Floating Cryogenic Hoses Matter
Composite LNG floating hoses are built to withstand the physical reality of cryogenic service at −162 °C while continuously moving with wave, swell, tide, and relative vessel motion. Rather than a rigid pipeline, they deliver:
- Fatigue resistance in dynamic offshore conditions, where fixed piping would suffer cyclic stress failure.
- Separation safety — in tandem ship-to-ship configurations vessels can remain 300–500 m apart, reducing collision risk OnePetro.
- No civil works — hoses float on the surface and require no seabed dredging or permanent structure.
- Deployment flexibility for side-by-side, tandem, ship-to-shore, ship-to-ship, FLNG, and bunkering operations.
4. Introducing HOHN GROUP LNG Floating Hoses
HOHN GROUP supplies engineered composite cryogenic floating hoses designed as the transfer link for jettyless and floating LNG systems such as the IQuay™ class, FSRU/FSU offloading, FLNG, and marine bunkering.
Construction
Our hose is an unbonded composite assembly built from multiple polymer film layers that form a fluid-tight barrier, woven fabric plies that carry axial and radial strength, and inner and outer stainless-steel wire helices that provide skeleton support and tensile reinforcement MDPI. A dedicated AEROGEL Technology insulation layer minimizes heat ingress, and an integrated leak-monitoring layer adds a continuous safety envelope.
Key technology of Aerogel brief introduction:
Aerogel insulation is an ultra-lightweight, high-performance thermal material composed of up to 99.8% air trapped inside a nanoporous solid network. Often called “frozen smoke,” it delivers some of the lowest thermal conductivity of any known material—blocking heat significantly better than traditional options like fiberglass or foam while taking up a fraction of the space.
Key Properties & Advantages
- Superior Thermal Performance: Thermal conductivity typically ranges from 0.013 to 0.021 W/(m·K), drastically reducing heat transfer from conduction and convection.
- Extreme Temperature Range: Operates effectively across wide thermal extremes, generally from -200°C to +650°C depending on the specific grade.
- Hydrophobic & Water-Repellent: Naturally repels liquid water while remaining vapor-permeable, which helps prevent mold and mitigates corrosion under insulation (CUI) on industrial pipelines.
- Thin & Flexible Formats: Most commercial aerogel is manufactured as flexible insulation blankets by embedding the aerogel into glass-fiber or synthetic matrices
Key Specification
Performance Advantages
- Minimized boil-off gas — superior insulation keeps heat ingress low and product loss minimal.
- Continuous integrity monitoring — redundant leak detection and distributed temperature measurement trigger ESD response before any escape escalates.
- Dynamic fatigue endurance — optimized for relative motion between carrier, platform, and terminal.
- Modular stringing — hose sections joined by flanged fittings to reach any required length for a given project.
- Multi-fluid readiness — compatible design scope extends to LPG, ammonia, bio-LNG, and liquid CO₂ transfer on request.
5. Applications
- Jettyless ship-to-shore import/export terminals (IQuay™-class floating platforms)
- FSRU / FSU ship-to-ship offloading in harsh metocean conditions
- FLNG side-by-side and tandem transfer
- Offshore and port LNG bunkering
- Small-scale LNG distribution and coastal reloading
6. Why Partner With HOHN GROUP
As LNG trade expands and jettyless infrastructure becomes the mainstream route to fast, low-CAPEX, permit-friendly terminals, a reliable hose supplier determines whether the floating system performs safely, season after season. HOHN GROUP combines proven composite cryogenic construction, recognized certification, project-specific string design, and responsive technical support — from inquiry and engineering to delivery, inspection, and after-sales service.
Contact [GQ@HOSES.CC +86 13365338335] to discuss your hose diameter, length, certification, and transfer-rate requirements, and receive a tailored quotation for your jettyless or floating LNG project.