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“During this visit, the two words that impressed us the most were ‘first’ and ‘independence’. ” On March 19, at the 6th China LNG Conference and China LNG Equipment and Materials Technology Exhibition held in Tianjin, an industry professional from the LNG sector who was there to attend the event told reporters as much. At this exhibition, which aims to promote the transformation of technological achievements, numerous domestic technological innovations such as new processes, new equipment, and new materials took center stage, offering new ideas and solutions to help the industry move toward a sustainable future. Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan, the development of a domestic ecosystem is in progress – ranging from valves the size of a palm to pipe fittings large enough for a person to stand inside, from special low-temperature coatings to precision instruments. At this exhibition, nearly a hundred companies showcased their innovative achievements and technological breakthroughs. Domestic equipment and materials are gradually reducing the industry’s reliance on imports, helping to establish an LNG industry ecosystem unique to China. “We are among the first manufacturers in China to have the capability to produce ultra-low temperature valves; we have been involved in the domestic development of key LNG valves such as ball valves, gate valves, globe valves, and butterfly valves. ”According to Zhang Yong, deputy general manager of a business unit at Newway Group Co., Ltd., the company’s 56-inch 300-pound ultra-low temperature butterfly valves, as well as 24-inch 1500-pound class (approximately 25.8 MPa) ultra-low temperature fixed ball valves, have all been put into use in projects for clients such as pipeline networks. In the future, the research team will also conduct studies on valves for floating liquefied natural gas carriers (FLNG), in order to establish a fully domestic ecosystem. Rizhao Co., Ltd. of Shandong Iron and Steel Group presented its specially developed and manufactured steel pipes for underwater gas transmission. “It’s not just LNG; we have also made investments in future areas such as using natural gas for hydrogen transport. We currently have relatively mature experimental test sections, and tests and certifications regarding properties such as pressure resistance, tensile strength, and corrosion resistance under high-pressure hydrogen conditions have already been completed. ”Qiao Song, deputy director of the medium and thick plate plant at Rizhao Co., Ltd. of Shandong Iron and Steel Group, said. “At present, the performance and service life of domestic equipment are basically on par with those of imported equipment. ”Zhang Peng, deputy general manager of Anshan Yuhu Fluid Equipment Co., Ltd., showed reporters the high-pressure loading and unloading arms as well as the low-temperature loading and unloading arms developed by the company. Among them, the high-pressure loading/unloading arm overcame the challenge of having a metal-free universal filling pipeline system in the handling of high-pressure hazardous gases, while the low-temperature loading/unloading arm achieved a technological breakthrough in the use of rotary joints that do not require nitrogen purging, thereby greatly enhancing the safety of handling fuel gases such as LNG and reducing the operating costs of processing stations. “We hope that in the future, under the guidance of the government, the industry will be able to establish a unified set of standards for LNG storage and transportation equipment as well as an associated industrial ecosystem, so that domestically produced equipment can replace the current non-standard equipment, thereby facilitating industrial upgrading and transformation in the future. ” Zhang Peng said. “With the push toward \"dual carbon\" goals, the utilization of temperature differences has become a new focus. Against this backdrop, as China’s LNG industry accelerates its development, many companies have come to realize that the cold energy released during the LNG gasification process represents a valuable resource. At this exhibition, companies such as China National Offshore Oil Corporation also presented technical solutions for making the most of cold energy. At the booth of CNOOC Gas & Power Group Co., Ltd., there was a model of China’s first 100-kilowatt-class liquefied natural gas cold-energy containerized power generation unit. According to the staff, the working principle of this system can be described as \"boiling water in reverse\". Using liquid propane as a medium, the heat from seawater is employed to vaporize it, which in turn drives a turbine to generate electricity. The gaseous propane produced is then cooled back to a liquid state using LNG for reuse, while the LNG that has released its cooling energy rises to a temperature suitable for pipeline transport, thus enabling efficient use of energy. At the same time, this container-based unit on display features a compact and modular design, enabling it to be used for the hierarchical utilization of cooling energy in remote areas and distributed energy sites. Sinopec’s Natural Gas Division demonstrated on site the country’s first heat and cold energy exchange station it has built. This facility addresses the need for a cooling source in ethylene production units and a heating source in liquefied natural gas production units, enabling the utilization of 346 tons per hour of cold energy – the highest rate in China – with a cold energy conversion efficiency of over 95%. According to the staff, the Tianjin Nangang LNG Cold Energy Comprehensive Utilization Demonstration Project, which is connected to this transducer station, is also set to go into operation soon. It is expected to have a production capacity of around 680 tons per day for liquid oxygen, 737 tons per day for liquid nitrogen, and 28 tons per day for liquid argon. This project will enable annual savings of 17,220 tons of standard coal in terms of energy use, as well as a reduction of approximately 18,600 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. At the exhibition featuring AI-based intelligent solutions, a four-legged robot moved slowly through the crowd; its camera, covered with a silver-gray casing, rotated flexibly, prompting many visitors to follow and take photos. This is an explosion-proof quadrupedal robot developed by Qiteng Robotics; it has been deployed in various locations such as pipeline distribution stations in Beijing and oil fields in Iraq, serving as a new safety barrier for energy transmission systems. There are many more intelligent solutions like this that have embraced the AI wave. Ren Jianxin, director of the Petrochemical Ports division at Tianjin Unicom’s Industrial Internet Research Institute, explained to reporters the comprehensive \"connection + platform + intelligence\" ecosystem that China Unicom has developed by leveraging its computing power and technical expertise: 5G passive IoT utilizes 5G-A technology to enable label operation without batteries and achieve wide coverage at low costs, thus solving the challenges associated with tracking large numbers of assets ； As the core IoT infrastructure, the Ge Wu platform has been upgraded to an industrial Internet platform that supports integrated sensing and the integration of industrial data, thereby strengthening the foundation for device connectivity and management ； Yuansheng • Wanwu is an industrial agent development platform that offers a low-code toolkit along with large-model capabilities, enabling enterprises to quickly customize various industrial agents and accelerating the digital transformation of the entire production process. The Natural Gas Research Institute of the Southwest Oil and Gas Field of CNPC (hereinafter referred to as the Research Institute) presented the results of its work on \"innovation in key technologies for natural gas quality monitoring and the development of relevant standard systems\". Among them, the high-precision natural gas composition analyzer developed by TIANYAN INSTITUTE is equipped with proprietary software that enables real-time calculation and reporting of calorific value data, allowing for highly accurate measurement of key quality indicators of natural gas in a single operation. Shen Lin, deputy director of the Natural Gas Analysis and Testing Institute at Zhongtian Research Institute, explained that this equipment can provide data on all key quality indicators in just 20 minutes. “Previously, the Ministry of Emergency Management proposed raising the safety risk level of about 90% of chemical industrial parks to level D (lower safety risk). **The Energy Bureau has also proposed to build a flexible and resilient oil and gas supply chain during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and to promote the upgrading of facilities toward intelligent sensing, proactive early warning, and unattended operation. In the future, whether it is the intelligent transformation of existing stations or the construction of new stations to achieve digital-intelligent integration, there is great potential in the market for digital-intelligent solutions in this industry. ”Ren Jianxin said.