Japan’s Oshima Shipbuilding appears to have ditched its long-running policy of not dealing directly with Greek owners on newbuilding orders after securing a contract from an unnamed company.
According to Japanese media, the shipyard has not signed a newbuilding contract with a Greek shipowner since a dispute over a deal during the shipping and shipbuilding recession of 1975. The dispute happened just two years after Oshima was established.
The recession turned out to be particularly painful for Oshima, which was forced to lay off staff and cut back its capacity.
Since then, Oshima-built ships have been sold to Greek owners in the resale market, or chartered to Greek operators, but its policy was to not take direct orders.
This changed earlier this month when it reportedly signed a newbuilding contract for a kamsarmax bulker with an unnamed Greek company. The order was one of six bulkers that European brokers reported the yard has contracted in recent weeks.
The Japanese yard generally keeps the owners it deals with private and declined to comment on the recent order, or its stance towards the Greek market. Out of 62 bulkers on order at the yard, the owners behind 34 of the contracts are listed as “undisclosed” in broker databases.
Most of the owners Oshima works with are Japanese, which have placed 52% of its orders, according to Oshima's own figures.
However, it has a close relationship with Canada’s Fednav, and is also building ships for BW Dry Cargo, which is a unit of Singapore-based BW Group, and Taiwan Navigation.
Oshima indicates about 19% of the orders built at its shipyard are from European owners, but Greece is not listed among the countries it deals with.
It is unusual that Oshima has not worked with the Greek market as it is one of the world’s leading builders of bulkers and Greece is the leading operator of dry bulk tonnage.
Sources suggested a number of factors may have prompted the change in policy. The downturn in newbuilding contracting during the pandemic may have encouraged the yard to expand its customer base.
Greek shipowning has also matured and become more corporate in recent years.
Oshima is also in talks to acquire Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Koyagi shipyard, which will significantly increase its newbuilding requirement.
There has also been a change in the executive leadership at Oshima, with Eiichi Hiraga taking over as president in September 2018.
