Geneva-based Swiss trader Global One Energy (Gloen) has signed a contract for the construction of four 50,000 dwt MR tankers with China’s largest private shipbuilder, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group, in an order valued at $180 million (roughly RMB 1.3 billion), with deliveries expected in 2026 and 2027.
Established in 2009, Global had earlier placed orders for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers, whose main products include LPG, high sulfur gasoline and fuel oil. To meet its LPG transportation needs, the company has been chartering LPG carriers of various sizes for a long time. Gloen is currently in the process of consolidating its LPG transportation business by building a fleet of market-competitive LPG carriers.
Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (Holdings) Co., Ltd. announced on November 2 that, by the end of September this year, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group’s new orders in 2023 reached 86 ships, valued at $6.54 billion, exceeding the annual target for new orders ($3 billion); hand-held orders amounted to 184 ships, valued at $14.82 billion, with the delivery date up to 2028 at the furthest end of the schedule. Among them, the tanker hand-held order quantity of 37 ships, valued at 1.74 billion U.S. dollars, including 24 50,000-ton MR-type tankers, 8 75,000-ton LR1-type tankers, 5 114,000-ton LR2-type tankers.
Sources in the shipbuilding industry have revealed that Gloen is one of several unnamed shipping companies that ordered new vessels from Chinese shipyards between July and September this year. Therefore, it is highly likely that these four new vessels will be included in Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group’s newly disclosed order summary.
The same day of the announcement disclosure, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group also announced that it had recently won 3 types of 14 new shipbuilding orders with a total value of about 770 million U.S. dollars, the 3 types of ships were 6 50,000-ton MR-type tankers, 2 75,000-ton LR1-type tankers, and 6 40,000 cbm LPG carriers. Among them, two 75,000-ton tankers were ordered by DYNACOM, a Greek shipowner.
In container ship market, according to Trade Winds, the world’s sixth largest container ship owner Ocean Network Express (ONE) has signed a shipbuilding contract with Jiangnan Shipbuilding and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group for the construction of a series of 13,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel-powered neo-Panamax containerships, with a total value of nearly US$2 billion, and it is expected that the new ships will be delivered between the end of 2026 and 2027, and the two shipyards will build six ships each. It is expected that the new vessels will be delivered between the end of 2026 and 2027, and the two shipyards will build six vessels each. This is the first time that ONE has placed an order for 12 methanol dual-fuel-powered ultra-large container ships with a Chinese shipyard. The Chinese shipyards have offered between $144 million and $153 million per vessel, the sources said.