Greece’s Evalend Shipping is diversifying its fleet and paying out more than half a billion dollars to make a major move into the LNG carrier sector.
Shipbuilding sources said the Kriton Lendoudis-led company — which does not own any LNG carriers or vessels powered by LNG — is poised to order two LNG carrier newbuildings after signing a letter of intent with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries.
They said the company will ink the official contract imminently.
Their capacity has not been revealed but brokers believe Evalend is likely to opt for the now standard 174,000-cbm vessels and not the 200,000-cbm ships since they allow for greater trading flexibility.
Those familiar with Evalend said the company originally planned to contract the LNG ships at Chinese shipyards but later decided to have them built in South Korea.
Officials at HHI were not available for comment, while Evalend did not respond to emails seeking confirmation.
Brokers following the South Korean shipbuilder’s activities said HHI will deliver the carriers in late 2027. They believe Evalend is paying about $260m per ship.
The orderbook for standard-size LNG carrier newbuildings is about 330 units, according to Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network. This is more than 52% of the existing trading fleet.
Despite the record orderbook for LNG ships, brokers, owners and analysts have highlighted the upcoming demand for vessels as the LNG trade continues to expand. Clarksons Research forecasts that this could accelerate from about 4% per annum in the 2023 to 2024 period to “potentially” about 10% in 2025 to 2027.
In addition, there is a need for vessels to fill fleet-replacement needs as companies look to phase out the less-efficient, smaller-capacity and higher-emitting steam-turbine LNG carriers, which currently make up around one-third of the global fleet.
Evalend has been one of the most active shipowners in the shipbuilding market in recent years.
The company started ordering new ships in early 2021 by contracting Hyundai Mipo Dockyard to build two medium gas carriers (MGCs).
Evalend’s newbuildings order spree saw the company diversifying into the product tanker arena with 50,000-dwt product carriers and LR1 tankers at China’s Yangzijiang Shipbuilding. It also debuted the suezmax tanker sector with an order of two ships at Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.
Based on TradeWinds’ records, Evalend has splashed out close to $2bn on orders for about 32 newbuildings since early 2021, excluding the LNG carriers that it will be ordering soon.
It contracted four MGCs, 12 VLGCs, two suezmax tankers, four open-hatch handysize bulk carriers, six MR tankers and four LR1 tankers. Several of the newbuildings have been delivered to the company.
