Ships Building
Early this month, Scorpio Tankers awarded Hyundai Mipo Dockyard two MR tanker and two handysize tanker contracts. The Monaco-based shipping company is also planning to place six more MR tanker and six more handysize tanker contracts soon. The contract amount is estimated at US$34.5 million for each MR tanker and US$32.5 million for each handysize vessel.
In the meantime, Maersk Tankers is expected to sign nine MR tanker contracts with Samsung Heavy Industries so that the ships are built at the latter’s Ningbo Shipyard located in China. The ships, estimated at US$32 million each, are scheduled to be delivered by 2018. The subsidiary of the Korean company in Ningbo recently won four MR tanker orders from Greek firm Capital Maritime as well.
The Korean shipbuilders, including Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and Samsung Heavy Industries, obtained 82 out of 132 tanker contracts around the world in the first half of this year, when the number of orders for merchant vessels continued to decline.
Nowadays, that of tanker orders is on the rise as the demands for various petroleum products are going up with the international oil price more than halved in one year. Tanker freight is showing an increase as of late, too.