Lepta Shipping, a joint venture shipping company between Japanese shipowner Nissen Kaiun and trading company Mitsui & Co, has once again returned to Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group to place an order for two additional 82,500 dwt Kamsarmax bulk carriers with its joint venture shipyard, Jiangsu Yangzi-Mitsui Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., according to Trade Winds.
The new shipbuildings will be delivered in the first half of 2026 at an undisclosed price, the sources said. The order was signed months ago but had not been made public before.
Back on May 31, 2023, Lepta Shipping had entered into a contract with Yangzi-Mitsui Shipbuilding for the construction of 10+2 82,500 dwt Kamsarmax bulk carriers. The series of bulk carriers are classed by Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) and deliveries are expected to start in the first quarter of 2026. Together with the two additional units, Lepta Shipping has ordered as many as 14 Kamsarmax bulk carriers from Yangzi-Mitsui Shipbuilding since last year.
The cooperation between the two parties has a long history, and they have previously cooperated to build series of 82,000DWT, 180,000DWT bulk carriers and 66,000DWT bulk carriers. At present, the new Yangzi Shipbuilding is building 10 3500TEU series container ships for Lepta Shipping, which was signed in 2020, with a total value of about 396 million US dollars. With an overall length of 200 meters, a beam of 36.4 meters and a depth of 20.6 meters, the series of container ships are classified by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and will be put into the fleet of the world’s top-class container shipping giant Maersk after delivery.
Yangzi-MitsuiShipbuilding Co., Ltd. is one of the three major shipyards under YangzijiangShipbuilding Group. It is located in Taicang City, Jiangsu Province, on the south bank of the golden waterway at the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, covering an area of about 1 million square meters. It has a 1,500-meter-long outfitting berth, over 5,000 employees, four 10,000-ton-level flat erection berths, a 1,100-ton gantry crane and a 100,000-ton floating dock. The annual shipbuilding capacity is 15-18 vessels of about 1.5 million deadweight tons.
The company’s main products are high-tech vessels such as LNG/LEG/LPG and other clean energy carriers, MR tankers and new-designKamsarmaxbulk carriers, serving high-levelshipowners worldwide. The order book includes 36,000 CBM LEG carriers, 40,000 CBM LPG and liquid ammonia carriers, MR tankers, Kamsarmax and Great Lakes bulk carriers.
According to the Group’s plan, in the future, Yangzi-Mitsui Shipbuilding will focus on oil tankers, chemical tankers and other liquid cargo ships, LNG, LEG, LPG and other high-technology and high-value-added clean energy ships as the main products, aiming to become a production base of “large-scale green and clean energy ships”.
Clarkson data shows that Yangzi Mitsui Shipbuilding currently has a total of 62 ships on hand, with delivery schedules extending through 2027.