Safe Bulkers announced on Wednesday the signing of yet another newbuilding contract — its 16th in the past three years.
Like several of the others ships ordered by the US-listed company in its fleet renewal and expansion campaign, the new vessel ordered at an unidentified Japanese yard is a conventionally-fuelled, 82,000-dwt kamsarmax.
The ship, which will be delivered within the third quarter of 2026, meets the latest EEDI Phase 3 requirements and meets the IMO’s latest NOx-Tier III rules.
Safe Bulkers president Loukas Barmparis said that the order is in line with the company’s ESG strategy as it is “targeting a gradual fleet renewal and the subsequent operational and financial advantages associated with it”.
Safe Bulkers had made a more daring newbuilding step in October when it announced booking its first methanol-fuelled pair of vessels at the Tsuneishi Shipbuilding Group.
Speaking at the Maritime Cyprus conference at the time, company principal and chief executive Polys Hajioannou said he ordered the two dual-fuel vessels without any signs yet that charterers were prepared to pay premium rates that would financially justify them.
Safe Bulkers’ current fleet on the water consists of 46 vessels with an average age of 10.5 years.
That figure includes seven of the 16 newbuildings that the company has ordered since 2020 and which have already been delivered by Oshima Shipbuilding and Shin Kurushima Dockyard.
The company has another nine newbuildings under construction. Two of them are due for delivery in 2024, two in 2025, three in 2026 and the final one in 2027.
Apart from its future pair of dual-fuel newbuildings at Tsuneishi, another pair of Safe Bulkers’ yet-to-be delivered newbuildings are being built at Cosco Yangzhou. The rest will be built at as yet unknown Japanese yards.
