Recently, Thai shipowner Precious Shipping signed a contract for the construction of 2+2 63,500 dwt Ultramax bulk carriers with Taizhou Sanfu Ship Engineering (Sanfu Shipbuilding).
According to industry sources, each new shipbuilding is priced at approximately $33.6 million, and with option orders, the total value of the four new shipbuilding orders would be $134.4 million ( about RMB 972 million), which are expected to be delivered in 2026 and 2027.
VesselsValue reports that currently bulk carrier newbuilding prices are at their highest level in 15 years. The report attributes the price increase to strong market fundamentals, increased demand, high steel prices and shipyard costs. Recently, Ultramax bulk carriers from Chinese shipyards have been trading at around $34 million each, which is about $10 million higher than market build prices in the 2010s.
Precious Shipping’s official website shows that the company was founded in December 1989 and listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on September 16, 1993. Through years of development, the company currently owns a fleet of 37 vessels with a total capacity of 1,615,269 dwt, including 17 Handysize bulk carriers, 8 Supramax bulk carriers, 8 Ultramax bulk carriers and 4 cement carriers.
This contract is not the first cooperation between the two parties. According to incomplete statistics, Precious Shipping had ordered as many as 15 bulk carriers from Sanfu Shipbuilding between 2013 and 2016, with the cost ranging from US$21.96 million to US$27.48 million, and all of them have been completed and delivered.
It is reported that the above order is the second new ship contract that Sanfu Shipbuilding has publicized this year. In April this year, Japanese shipping giant MOL has signed a contract with the shipyard for the construction of one 13,000 dwt wind turbine module carrier aiming to serve Japan’s offshore wind industry, which is expected to be delivered in the spring of 2026. The value of the order has not yet been announced.
Sanfu Shipbuilding is a national Class I and Grade I steel general ship production enterprise. The company main products are including all types of container vessels, multi-purpose vessels, tankers/chemical vessels, bulk carriers, tugs, ocean engineering vessels and various types of barges, up to 120,000DWT.
The company has two high-tech ship construction bases, Yongan Site and Kouan Site, both are located on the Golden Waterway of Yangtze River, equipped with outfitting shoreline wharves for 10,000-ton ships,7 slipways and hundreds of hoisting equipment, with a maximum lifting capacity of 900 tons. Equipped with 4 units of 170 m3 air compressor station, 150 tons and 320 tons flat car, and other types of production vehicles, 4500 tons and 800 tons of hydraulic machine and other production support equipment; with more than 1000 sets of efficient welding equipment; with plate shearing machine, pipe bending machine, large CNC three-roll plate rolling machine, 400 tons of frame cold bending machine and other CNC equipment. The company has 3 sets of 4.5m and 2.5m steel plate pretreatment production lines, various kinds of CNC platforms of more than 20,000 square meters, advanced four- spray -six- coating sandblasting workshop and other production facilities.