Samsung E&A announced it is entering the LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) plant business in earnest, unveiling its “LNG Modular Package” for LNG liquefaction plant construction for the first time at Gastech 2026, an international LNG exhibition held in Bangkok, Thailand. The package combines Honeywell’s single mixed refrigerant liquefaction technology, AP-SMR, with modular design and construction capabilities Samsung E&A has accumulated through other plant businesses, and is optimized for small and mid-scale LNG liquefaction plant projects. Samsung E&A expects the approach to shorten the overall project schedule — from early development through EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) — by about 20%.
Samsung E&A’s LNG Modular Package involves prefabricating the major process equipment that makes up an LNG liquefaction plant as modules at a fabrication yard, with on-site work focused mainly on assembly and connection. The core liquefaction technology adopted is AP-SMR, a single mixed refrigerant (SMR) liquefaction technology held by Honeywell’s subsidiary, Honeywell Technologies. AP-SMR cools and liquefies natural gas through a single mixed-refrigerant cooling cycle; compared with liquefaction technologies used at large LNG plants, which combine multiple refrigerant cycles to maximize throughput, AP-SMR is known for a relatively simpler equipment configuration that suits small and mid-scale projects. Samsung E&A combined this with modular design and construction capabilities it has built up in other plant businesses such as refining and petrochemicals, enabling major process equipment — including piping, structures, and instrumentation — to be fabricated in parallel at controlled fabrication yards and then transported to the site for assembly.
Under the conventional stick-built method — the traditional approach in which materials and equipment are assembled and installed piece by piece on site — piping installation, welding, and instrumentation work must proceed sequentially in the field, making progress highly dependent on site conditions such as weather and labor availability, and often resulting in longer wait times between process stages. By contrast, Samsung E&A explains that the modular approach allows a large portion of this work to be carried out simultaneously at fabrication yards less exposed to weather conditions, reducing on-site workload and overall construction duration while improving the efficiency of quality and process control in a standardized environment.
Samsung E&A first unveiled the LNG Modular Package at Gastech 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand, on September 16, and made the official announcement on September 17. The company said it expects the approach to shorten the overall project schedule — from early development through EPC — by about 20%. The package is optimized for small and mid-scale LNG liquefaction plant projects; specific train (production unit) capacity, target clients, or contract values have not been disclosed.
Amid rising global power demand and calls for diversified energy supply chains, competition among countries to secure stable LNG supplies continues, and demand for small and mid-scale LNG liquefaction plants is growing alongside large-scale projects. Through this modular package, Samsung E&A plans to extend the modular execution capabilities it has built in refining and petrochemical plants to LNG liquefaction plants for the first time, entering the related EPC market in earnest.
Across the global EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) industry, the shift toward modularization has continued to expand across refining, petrochemical, and oil and gas plants as a response to on-site labor shortages, weather-related risks, and rising costs from schedule delays. Combining a foreign licensor’s process technology with an EPC contractor’s own modular design and construction capabilities, as in this case, is widely regarded as one of the standard routes engineering firms without proprietary liquefaction technology licenses use to enter the LNG liquefaction plant market. Small and mid-scale LNG liquefaction plants in particular are considered easier to standardize and modularize than large trains, making them an area where schedule compression and cost-reduction benefits can be validated relatively quickly. Against this backdrop, a number of global engineering firms have already introduced modular LNG and gas-processing plant methods, meaning that for new entrants, building an actual order track record will likely matter as much as the maturity of the construction method itself. The announcement can also be read as a further example of a broader industry pattern in which EPC firms unveil new technologies and construction methods at international exhibitions to gain early visibility with prospective clients.
When this modular package translates into an actual project order, and the scale of the first reference project, remain to be confirmed. Whether Samsung E&A discloses more specific per-train production capacity or the range of project sizes the package can serve is also worth watching. How established global engineering firms in the LNG liquefaction plant EPC market — such as Technip Energies, Chiyoda, and JGC — respond with similar modular approaches is another point of interest. The buildout of fabrication yards and the logistics capabilities needed to transport large modules by sea and land are execution-stage details that also warrant continued attention.