American Shipper
Samsung Heavy Industries announced on June 4 that it signed shipbuilding contracts for three shuttle tankers with an American shipper in Oslo, Norway, the venue of this year’s Nor-Shipping expo, and the contract amounts total approximately US$330 million.
Each of the 155,000 DWT ships is about 293 meters in length and 49 meters in width. The delivery is scheduled to be completed by Feb. 2018, before the marine vessels are put into operation in oil fields offshore the east coast of Canada.
A shuttle tanker is a type of oil tanker that carries crude oil from an offshore oil field to storage facilities on land. At present, most shuttle tankers are found in the North Sea, off the Canadian east coast, and offshore oil fields of Brazil.
A shuttle tanker is a high-value-added ship at least 1.5 times more expensive than a general tanker with the same size. The ships to be built by Samsung Heavy Industries cost US$110 million on average, while general tankers of the same size cost an average of US$65 million.
Up until now, a total of 114 shuttle tanker orders have been placed around the world. Samsung Heavy Industries has taken 43 of them, recording the highest market share in the industry.