ISLE OF GRAIN, England — The placid waters near the entrance to the River Medway look more suited for sailboats and other pleasure craft, but some of the biggest ships in the world twist their way to a pier here.
Simon Culkin, the importation terminal manager at the facility called Grain LNG, jokes about making sure that none of these vessels are helmed by a “learner driver.”
The behemoths, some of them more than 1,000 feet long, bring cargoes of liquefied natural gas. Once the ships lock onto a rack of pipes on the jetty, their frigid fuel flows into massive concrete-clad storage tanks 160 feet tall.
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