China’s Pacific Gas has built up a big orderbook of dual-fuelled very large ethane carriers at Jiangnan Shipyard.
The Shanghai-based company now has 14 newbuildings on order at the state-owned shipyard, having inked three ships last week at Marintec China.
According to Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network, known as SIN, four of the 99,000-cbm ethane carriers were ordered last year, and six were inked in September 2023.
Pacific Gas tops the VLEC order table, according to SIN. There have been 33 of the ship type ordered in total. The company is followed by Sinogas Management, part of Wideshine Group, and a sister company to Tianjin Southwest Maritime, with 11 newbuildings.
Officials at Jiangnan declined to comment on the shipyard’s newbuilding activities, citing contract confidentiality. Pacific Gas was not contactable.
Pacific Gas is estimated to have splashed out $2.1bn on the dual-fuel VLECs, paying about $130m each for the vessels it ordered in 2022 and about $160m apiece for those inked this year.
SIN shows Jiangnan is scheduled to deliver the first of the 14 VLEC newbuildings, to be named Pacific SP Minerva, in April 2024. The 99,000-cbm carrier will be operated by SP Chemicals, also known as Xinpu Chemical.
The charter period and rate are not known.
Market sources said Pacific Gas had also fixed out three of its VLEC newbuildings to Wanhua Chemical Group and four to UK chemicals giant Ineos.
TradeWinds is told that Wanhua Chemical will sublet the VLECs to AW Shipping — the joint venture between the Chinese chemical company and Middle East shipowner Adnoc Logistics & Services.
AW Shipping is said to be seeking several VLECs as Adnoc Gas is building a large gas processing facility in Abu Dhabi.
Jiangnan is slated to deliver the IMO type-B tank ethane carriers to Pacific Gas by October 2027.
Registered in Hong Kong, Pacific Gas is a subsidiary of Shandong Energy, a unit under China’s third-largest shipping company Shandong Shipping.
Pacific Gas specialises in gas ships, supply chain management and storage-facilities business. The company controls eight VLGCs, five ethylene carriers of between 17,000 cbm and 22,000 cbm and two VLECs.
The VLECs — the Pacific Ineos Grenadier (built 2022) and Pacific Ineos Belstaff (built 2021) — were also constructed at Jiangnan. The duo was ordered in 2019 at a reported price of about $120m per ship. Ineos employs the vessels.
