Cost Estimation

Cryogenic and LNG Equipment Cost Estimation: What Drives the Price and How to Quote It

Where the money actually goes in cryogenic and LNG equipment: alloy plate, field labor, NDE and rework, insulation trades, and the assumptions a defensible quote must state.

Cryogenic equipment pricing spans an order of magnitude on a per volume basis. Shop built vacuum jacketed tanks in the 20 to 60 m³ class quote at roughly $1,500 to $3,000 per m³ of capacity, while a field erected 160,000 m³ full containment LNG tank lands near $300 to $600 per m³, or $50 to $100 million per tank. The buckets behind either number are consistent: material 35 to 45 percent, direct labor 25 to 35 percent, insulation systems 8 to 15 percent, NDE and testing 5 to 10 percent, and indirects plus overhead 10 to 20 percent. Estimate each bucket separately or your quote is a guess with a letterhead.

Material starts with the inner vessel alloy. Nine percent nickel plate runs $4,500 to $6,500 per tonne against $900 for carbon steel, and 304L stainless sits near $3,200 to $3,800 per tonne, so alloy selection alone can move the material line by a factor of five. Plate nesting yield on shell courses and dished heads is typically 85 to 92 percent, and 9 percent nickel offcuts have little resale value, so carry the full drop in the estimate. Welding consumables bite harder than most estimators expect: nickel alloy filler such as ENiCrMo-6 costs $40 to $60 per kg versus $3 for carbon steel wire, and consumables can reach 10 percent of the material bucket.

Labor rates diverge sharply between shop and field. A loaded shop hour runs $70 to $110, while a field cryogenic welder with per diem and craft support costs $120 to $160 per hour, and field productivity is 30 to 50 percent lower. A large full containment tank consumes 500,000 to 800,000 direct field hours over 30 to 36 months; a 30 m³ shop tank takes 800 to 1,500 hours. Weather and access downtime on field work adds 8 to 15 percent to hours in most climates. The Field Erection Labor calculator builds the crew loaded estimate from tonnage, weld length, and productivity factors instead of a single squishy percentage.

Inspection and rework are where lump sum bids die. Primary containment welds get 100 percent radiography or phased array UT at $15 to $40 per weld foot depending on thickness and access. Repair rate is the multiplier: a shop holding 2 percent repairs pays a rounding error, while a field crew at 6 to 8 percent pays 4 to 8 times the original cost per repaired joint on 9 percent nickel, since each repair means excavation, rewelding, reinspection, and often a night shift. Use the Cryogenic Weld Inspection Energy Load calculator to price the inspection program, and add helium mass spectrometer leak testing, typically $10,000 to $50,000 per vessel campaign.

Insulation is a capex versus operating cost trade, and the operating side has a clean dollar value. Every watt of heat leak on LNG evaporates about 0.17 kg per day, roughly 62 kg per year, worth $30 to $40 per year at $10 per MMBtu gas. Installed multilayer insulation runs $150 to $400 per m² against $40 to $90 for perlite fill, but can cut heat flux by a factor of 10 to 30. The Cryogenic Insulation Performance Cost calculator sets these against each other over a 20 to 30 year life; on long life storage the premium system usually wins, on a trailer that turns over daily it often does not.

Ancillary scope is chronically underquoted. Relief stations with dual valves, a diverter, and a rupture disc run $8,000 to $40,000 installed per nozzle; the Pressure Relief Sizing Cost calculator prices them from set pressure and required capacity. Submerged motor pumps add both capital, $60,000 to $250,000 each, and a permanent energy bill that the Cryogenic Pump Energy Load calculator converts to dollars per year. Vaporizers price at roughly $80 to $200 per kW of duty taken from the Vaporizer Capacity output. Product losses are a real owner line item too: the LNG Transfer Loss calculator turns each offload into dollars, often $200 to $1,000 per trailer at current gas prices.

A defensible quote shows its assumptions. State the alloy price date and add a nickel surcharge escalation clause, because 9 percent nickel plate moved more than 30 percent in single years during the last decade. Carry 10 to 15 percent contingency on field labor and 5 percent on shop work. Include commissioning fluids explicitly: first cooldown of a large tank can consume hundreds of tonnes of LNG or liquid nitrogen, and the Cryogenic Cooldown Time calculator sizes that purchase. Estimates that go wrong share a pattern: correct material takeoff, honest shop hours, then silence on rework rate, weather, escalation, and commissioning. Price the silence and you stop losing money on the jobs you win.

Published 2026-07-02.