The falling container ship market and the rising tanker sector have led one shipping company to switch feeder boxship newbuildings booked at a South Korean shipyard to large crude carriers.
Several shipbuilding sources said Tsakos Group of Greece is not going ahead with the feeder container ship newbuildings that it ordered at Hyundai Heavy Industries last year.
Instead, it has swapped them for 158,000-dwt suezmax tanker newbuildings.
“Tsakos has two 2,800-teu newbuildings booked at HHI,” one shipbuilding source said.
“But it has flipped the container ships for one firm suezmax tanker for delivery in the first half of 2025.
“The revised newbuilding contract includes an option for an additional tanker.”
Officials at HHI declined to comment, citing contract confidentiality.
Tsakos was also unavailable for comment at the time of writing.
In May last year, TradeWinds reported that HHI sealed a feeder container ship order that involved four newbuildings with Tsakos.
The newbuildings contract made headlines as it was rare for HHI to contract feeder boxships.
The Ulsan-based shipbuilder usually only constructs large oil tankers, container ships of more than 7,000 teu and large gas carriers.
However, it managed to squeeze out some early delivery slots for the end of this year and early 2024 for smaller ships after it rejigged its production plan.
HHI delivered its last feeder boxship in 2010.
Tsakos was reported to have paid a premium price of $47m per ship for the efficient but conventionally fuelled feeder container ship newbuildings.
Sources said HHI’s suezmax tanker did not come cheap.
Tsakos is believed to be paying about $85m for the 158,000-dwt crude carrier.
This is about 13% higher than the two scrubber-fitted, 157,000-dwt suezmax tankers that Belgium owner Euronav ordered at South Korea’s “second-tier shipyard” DH Shipbuilding —formerly Daehan Shipbuilding — in October 2022.
The New York and Brussels-listed owner was reported to have paid about $75m each for tankers that will be fitted with ballast water treatment systems and will be LNG-ready.
The pair of newbuildings are slated to be delivered in the third quarter of 2024.
The switch of boxship newbuildings into tankers by Tsakos did not surprise shipbuilding players as they are expecting some companies to be making the move amid the downturn of the container ship sector and vessels idling.
