China’s Nantong Xiangyu Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering has bagged an order for eight ultramax bulker newbuildings worth more than $272m from a local financial leasing company.
The state-owned shipyard has struck a deal with Chinese leasing newcomer Xiamen Financial Leasing (XMFL) for the 64,000-dwt methanol-ready series.
Shipping players following Chinese newbuilding activities said Cosco Shipping Bulk is behind XMFL’s newbuildings, ordering the ships on the back of long-term charters from the shipping giant.
A shipyard official confirmed the deal, adding the yard will deliver the ultramaxes between 2025 and 2027.
Shipbuilding sources believe the eight-ship order is XMFL’s first ever newbuildings contract. The leasing company made its debut into the shipping arena in late 2022 by financing a Chinese-flagged feeder-size container ship, the 724-teu Ying Hai 79 (built 2011).
Details on the newbuilding price for the 64,000-dwt bulkers have yet to emerge, although brokers said that units of the ship type would cost more than $34m in the current market.
The rates and terms of the Cosco Shipping Bulk charters have also not been disclosed.
XMFL’s bulkers will be built to the International Maritime Organization’s Tier III NOx standards and meet Energy Efficiency Design Index Phase 3 compliance for greenhouse gas emissions.
Headquartered in Shanghai, Cosco Shipping Bulk is a subsidiary of China Cosco Shipping. The bulker company controls more than 400 bulkers ranging from handysize to Valemaxes, deployed on domestic and international trades.
Early this year, Cosco Shipping Bulk ordered two methanol dual-fuelled 325,000-dwt ore carrier newbuildings at Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry Yangzhou.
The company did not disclose how it will trade the two vessels that are referred to in the industry as Guaibamaxes, but shipping sources believe they have been earmarked for Vale cargoes.
Cosco Shipping Bulk was said to be one of the few companies selected by Vale for the next generation of Guaibamax, which the mining company will employ under long-term contracts of affreightment.
Cosco Shipping Bulk is scheduled to take delivery of the first ore carrier in late 2026 and the second newbuilding in May 2027.
Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network shows Cosco Shipping Bulk also has five 12,000-dwt deck cargo carriers under construction at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipbuilding. Two of the vessels are due to be delivered this year and the remaining units in 2025.
Based in Jiangsu province, Nantong Xiangyu was founded at the end of 2016 when a consortium of three domestic companies — Xiamen Xiangyu, Nantong Tongbao Shipping and China Ocean Industry Group — took over the collapsed Nantong Mingde Heavy Industries.
The shipyard focuses on building handysize tankers, and bulkers of up to kamsarmax size. It has expanded capacity by renting slipways and a dry dock from Sainty Shipbuilding (formerly Sainty Marine) and is building ultramax bulkers there.
