Abstract: LNG carriers are internationally-recognized ship types featuring high-technology content, high-manufacturing difficulty and high added value, and they are playing an increasingly important role in the global energy market. To accurately grasp the research progress and frontier hotspots of China's high-end LNG ship sector and deeply analyze its development trends, relevant literature published from 2009 to 2024 was retrieved from the CNKI academic journal database with LNG, liquefied natural gas and ship as subject terms. Using the bibliometric tool CiteSpace, visual bibliometric analysis was conducted on 1315 cleaned literature samples from four perspectives: publication output, core authors, research institutions and key words. The study reveals that the overall number of Chinese research papers concerning LNG ships has shown an upward trend since 2009. Research teams have formed relatively mature cooperative relationships, and close collaborations exist among different institutions in geographically adjacent regions. Major research hotspots focus on fields such as cargo tank structural strength and dual-fuel power systems, while LNG bunkering vessels, hybrid propulsion systems, operational risk assessment and ship-wide energy efficiency management may represent future cutting-edge research directions.

Key words: LNG carrierlbibliometriclCiteSpacelvisual analysislLNG bunkering vesselslFloating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU)