Greek shipowner Unisea Shipping is making a break into the suezmax tanker sector by signing up for a pair of 156,000-dwt newbuildings at a South Korean shipyard.
Industry sources said Unisea has commissioned Samsung Heavy Industries to build the crude carriers. It is not known whether the deal includes options for additional vessels.
An SHI executive declined to comment for this story, and Unisea did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is not clear how much Unisea is paying for the suezmax duo, but a shipbuilding source believes the company will be looking to spend at least $55m each. SHI is scheduled to deliver the first vessel in end-2022 and the second ship in early 2023.
Unisea is the third company to have ordered suezmax tankers at SHI in recent weeks.
Fellow Greek shipowner Pantheon Tankers and New York-listed Nordic American Tankers (NAT) each signed up for two newbuildings last month. The companies are slated to take delivery of the suezmaxes in 2022.
SHI is said to have won the spate of orders thanks to a drop in its shipbuilding prices.
Big three lagging
Market observers have described the yard group as the least successful among South Korea's big three in filling its available berths. Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering are both behind in reaching their order targets, but SHI lags further behind its rivals.
The Koje-based shipbuilder only contracted 11 newbuildings worth $1bn between January and September, the orders by Pantheon and NAT. Malaysia’s AET has also ordered at the yard, booking three shuttle tankers and a pair of dual-fuel VLCCs.
Athens-based Unisea has a 21-ship fleet, which is made up of eight aframax tankers, three capesize bulk carriers, four kamsarmaxes and six supramax bulkers.
Early this year, Unisea sold two scrubber-fitted modern aframax tankers — the 112,800-dwt Aquabliss and Aquafreedom (both built 2019). Norway’s Viken paid $56m for the Aquabliss and renamed it Aurviken. Minerva Marine bought the Aquafreedom for $55m and renamed it Minerva Kallisto.
Unisea was founded in 2005 by Adamantios Lemos. The company’s current chief executive is Alexandros Zaracoudis, a former partner at shipping advisory firm Eurofin and former general manager at Arista Shipping.
