In the evening of August 5, COSCO SHIPPING Specialized Carriers Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “COSCO SHIPPING Specialized Carriers” or “the Company”) issued an Announcement on the Construction of Four 9,000 DWT special liquid cargo vessels.
The announcement disclosed that in order to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the fleet, and to build a multi-ship type, multi-cargo, new energy-saving and environmental protection special liquid cargo transport fleet, COSCO SHIPPING Specialized Carriers intends to invest in the construction of four 9,000 DWT special liquid cargo vessels in Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding by its wholly-owned subsidiary, COSCO SHIPPING (Hong Kong) as the main investment body. The total investment of the project is about US$98 million and is expected to be delivered between October 2025 and August 2026.
COSCO SHIPPING Specialized Carriers said that in recent years, with the improvement of oil company standards and global green and low-carbon requirements, asphalt carriers built before 2005 have been driven out of the core market, and there are only 21 7,000-9,000 DWT vessels with an age of less than 10 years, accounting for about 7% of the total. At present, the asphalt transportation market is facing the situation of overall aging of capacity and shortage of capacity in the high-end market, coupled with the surge in large-tonnage and long-distance transportation business, the supply of capacity exceeds the demand, and the tariffs and rents have been climbing recently.
Relying on the capacity demand of core large customers, COSCO SHIPPING Specialized Carriers seized the current favorable market opportunities to build four energy-saving and environmental friendly 9,000 DWT class vessels, which are also engaged in a variety of chemicals and liquid cargoes, and meet the needs of low-cost long-distance transportation, which is beneficial to focusing on the company’s core business of serving strategic commodities and promoting the optimization of the structure of the asphalt fleet. The company to built a 7,500 DWT, 9,000 DWT and 13,000 DWT ladder capacity mix, which significantly enhanced the future market competitiveness of its asphalt fleet.
It is reported that Mawei Shipbuilding was established on June 27, 1980, is a subsidiary of Fujian Shipbuilding Industry Group with the ability to build a variety of containerships, offshore engineering vessels, PCTCs, oil and chemical tankers, deep-sea aquaculture platforms and offshore wind power heavy-duty steel structure and other products.