Abstract: To keep LNG ships safe during navigating, loading and unloading, the data on LNG ship accidents were statistically analyzed and the related literatures were reviewed. The analysis reveals that the researches on LNG ship maritime transport safety in the existing literatures mainly focused on six fields, including LNG ship security zone settings, channel adaptation and channel performance, anchoring and mooring, LNG ship handling, LNG leak consequence modeling analysis, and risk identification and safety assessment,that most of the current methodologies incorporate mathematical models, and are gradually developing towards quantification analysis, that simulation and test data are used fully, which can enhance the reliability,that further improvement and expansion are needed for these models to form an intelligent safety evaluation terminal,and that changes in both LNG ships and their loading way will bring new problems of safety, to which a great deal of attention should be paid.

Key words: LNG ships, safety accident analysis, safety evaluation, risk identificaiton, research status