Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry’s Yangzhou shipyard has secured bulker newbuildings worth around $216m from a company believed to be linked to Ghassan Ghandour.
Industry sources say Athens-based Hermes Marine Management has contracted the yard to construct four firm 82,000-dwt kamsarmaxes for delivery in 2020. The deal includes options for four more vessels.
An official at Cosco Yangzhou declined to comment on whether Hermes was behind the contract, although he did confirm the yard is in newbuilding discussions with an unnamed Greek-based company.
The price of the vessels was not disclosed, but shipbuilding market players believe they are costing around $27m each. The ships will be built to the Tier II NOx emissions standards, rather than the IMO’s newer Tier III rules.
Little is known about Hermes. Some shipping players understand it is affiliated to Gulf Marine Management, which is controlled by Lebanese shipowner Ghandour.
According to Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network, Hermes and Gulf Marine have the same address and both have stakes in the DSME-built, 320,000-dwt VLCC Chloe V (built 2011).
Ghandour is known mainly as a tanker player and was prominent in the VLCC market a few years ago. In 2010, he sold seven VLCCs, then one in 2012 and one in 2017.
Last year, Gulf Marine was tipped by brokers to be eyeing a return to the market with the purchase of two VLCC newbuilding contracts, but the vessels do not appear in its fleet list. During the 2007 dry bulk boom, Gulf Marine was reported to have paid $249m to order three 180,000-dwt capesizes at its favoured yard, DSME, for delivery from the middle of 2009. It is unclear if they were ever built.
Cosco's Yangzhou was formerly known as CIC Jiangsu and was controlled by China Shipping Group. After the merger of Cosco and China Shipping Group at the end of 2016, the 13 shipyards under the two shipping giants were consolidated into Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry.
