Ineos Trading & Shipping is gearing up to take delivery of its first chartered-in very large ethane carrier newbuilding as work start on a second ship for the company.
The 85,000-cbm newbuilding Marlin is due for delivery from Dalian Industry Shipbuilding Co this quarter.
The ship, which has been built by an affiliate of Jacques de Chateauvieux's Jaccar Holdings and will be operated by group company Evergas, is also able to carry ethylene.
De Chateauvieux previously priced the ship at $130m. The vessel underwent sea trials from the yard last month but it was not previously known how it would be employed.
The newbuilding was delivered to Jaccar on Tuesday, according to local media reports.
At the same time a keel-laying ceremony was held for a second, slightly larger VLEC newbuilding at DSIC. This vessel will also be chartered to the trading arm of petrochemicals giant Ineos.
Marlin, which is only the seventh VLEC to be built globally, was originally one of five ordered against contracts with Chinese company Oriental Energy in 2014.
But this business failed and three of the newbuildings were axed.
The two VLECs being completed have been built with an innovative trilobe type-C tank, designed by Jaccar affiliate JHW Engineering & Contracting and Germany’s Hartmann Group, to maximise its cargo carrying capacity.
They are being fitted with low-speed, dual-fuel engines supplied by MAN Energy Solutions that are able to run on ethane and diesel.
The second vessel has been upsized to 95,000-cbm.
Jaccar has said it will be used to ship ethane from the US into a new gas cracker being built by SP Chemicals in Taixing, in eastern China.
To date just one long-haul ethane trade is in operation from the US which started in 2016.
This is served by six 87,000-cbm VLECs which are owned by Japanese shipowner MOL and chartered to Reliance Industries.
These vessels ship around 1.5 million tonnes per annum of ethane from Enterprise Products Partners’ export facility in the US to the Indian company's Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat.
Orders for another six VLECs pencilled in by US company Delos with two South Korean yards have yet to be firmed up.
