On Monday, China State Shipbuilding Corp, the world's largest shipbuilder, received what it calls the world's largest single order of ships from energy industry giant QatarEnergy.

The State-owned conglomerate signed a contract for 18 super-heavy, liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers with QatarEnergy at a signing ceremony in Beijing, which was participated by Qatar's Minister of State for Energy Affairs and president and CEO of the Qatari company Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi and Wen Gang, chairman of CSSC.

Formerly known as Qatar Petroleum, QatarEnergy is a State-owned company that operates all oil and gas activities in the Arab country. It is the world's largest provider of LNG.

According to a news release from CSSC, the deal has become the biggest single procurement of any ships in the history of the world's shipbuilding sector, though the company refused to disclose the order's value in consideration of commercial confidentiality.

The contract is a testimony to CSSC's rising status in the global market of LNG carriers and also symbolizes China's rapid advances in the research, development and building of ultra-large LNG tankers, CSSC noted.

The 18 ultra-large LNG carriers are in the Q-Max class. They have been designed by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, a CSSC subsidiary in Shanghai.

After the signing of the contract, the Shanghai shipyard will start building those vessels.

Each of the QatarEnergy carriers will be 344 meters long, 53.6 meters wide and will have a draft of 12 meters. It will be able to contain 271,000 cubic meters of LNG, about 57 percent more than regular LNG carriers with maximum capacity of 174,000 cubic meters.

One of such carriers can transport 155 million cubic meters of natural gas at a time, which can meet the gas consumption demand of 4.7 million households in Shanghai for one month.

These specifications make it the largest LNG carrier developed in the world so far.

Currently, the world's largest LNG carriers are Qatar's Q-Max vessels with carrying capacities ranging from 263,000 to 266,000 cubic meters of LNG.