Greek shipowner George Economou has signed a contract with Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Yangzhou) for the construction of four more 210,000 dwt Newcastlemax bulk carriers, Greek and U.S.-based shipbrokers revealed last month, according to Trade Winds.
With this latest order, George Economou currently has a total of eight Newcastlemax bulk carriers under contract with Yangzhou COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry.
In March this year, George Economou and Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Yangzhou) signed the first batch of 2 Newcastlemax bulk carriers construction contract, scheduled to be delivered in October and December 2025, and the new shipbuilding broker estimated that the cost of a single ship would be more than USD 64 million according to the market conditions at that time. In June this year, the Greek shipowner returned to Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Yangzhou) and ordered two Newcastlemax bulk carriers again, scheduled for delivery in February and April 2026, with a cost of about $64 million each and a total value of about $128 million. If the cost of each for the four newly signed vessels of the same type remains at US$64 million, the total order value of the eight vessels will reach US$512 million (currently about RMB 3.73 billion).
Last month, Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Yangzhou) also contracted two 82,000 dwt Kamsarmax bulk carriers from Greek shipping company Lavinia. Although the price of the new vessels has not yet been announced, the current market cost of this type of vessel is about 33 million dollars. At that time, Lavinia had placed orders for a total of six Kamsarmax bulk carriers, with the other four being built by Qingdao Yangfan Shipbuilding Co.
Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry (Yangzhou) Co., Ltd. is subordinate to COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. which is a subsidiary of China COSCO Shipping Corporation. Registered in May 2007 with a registered capital of 6.3 billion RMB, it is mainly engaged in the manufacture of medium and large-sized ships and floating devices on the water, etc. Covering an area of 2,950,000 square meters, it owns a 3,500-meter golden water coastline for shipbuilding, with seven large berths, one 80,000-ton shipyard, two 400,000-ton shipyards, and an annual planning capacity of 3.5 million DWT.