China's shipbuilding industry kept landing new orders in the first quarter of this year, securing 92 percent of global new orders for very large crude carriers (VLCCs).
According to the latest data, Chinese shipyards took 67 VLCC orders in the January-March period -- pushing their construction schedules to 2030.
With continuous breakthroughs in core tanker-building technologies, China has now mastered state-of-the-art dual-fuel systems powered by methanol and ammonia.
At the same time, sustained gains in production efficiency have enabled Chinese shipyards to reduce the cycle from keel laying to delivery for a VLCC to only about one year.
Driven by advanced technology and a sharp reading of market trends, Chinese shipbuilders are seeing a concentrated surge in new VLCC orders.
China secures 92 pct of global super-large oil tanker orders in January-March
The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.
Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.
The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.
Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.
The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.
Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.
Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew
