Gianluigi Aponte’s enormous appetite for newbuildings has continued with an order for 18 large vessels at shipyards in China, sources say.
It extends a remarkable investment run for his MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, which is believed to have passed $7bn in the past couple of weeks.
MSC was believed to have splashed out about $5bn in ordering up to 24 mega-size container vessels last week, as TradeWinds has reported.
That run has now been extended with the extra deals, bringing the total number of new vessels contracted by the world’s largest container line to 42 in 14 days, market sources told TradeWinds.
MSC’s latest move spans two shipyards with deals for two different sizes of ship, sources said.
MSC has struck a deal with state-owned Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS) for six 19,000-teu newbuildings and up to a dozen 11,500-teu vessels at Penglai Jinglu Shipyard, sources believe.
The six newbuildings that MSC inked at SWS are all firm orders, while the deal with Penglai Jinglu is said to involve eight firm ships and options for an additional four.
The dual-propulsion ships will be powered by LNG.
Sources said SWS is scheduled to deliver the sextet between late 2027 and 2028. The cost of the 19,000-teu boxships is said to be about $210m each.
They add MSC is paying about $140m each for the 11,500-teu newbuildings at Penglai Jinglu. Those vessels are scheduled to delivered in 2027 and 2028.
The order marked the shipyard’s entry into the large boxship segment. This is also the first LNG dual-fuel newbuilding deal for Penglai Jinglu, which has been known for building midsize vessels.
Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network shows the shipyard has delivered several feeder boxships of up to 1,800 teu. It is currently building four methanol-ready 3,006-teu newbuildings for Denmark’s Celsius Shipping.
Last week, TradeWinds reported MSC had invested about $5bn in ordering 24 ultra-large newbuildings.
It booked a dozen 9,000-teu container vessels at Zhoushan Changhong International Shipyard.
The LNG dual-fuelled ships were reported to cost about $210m apiece and are scheduled to be delivered between 2027 and 2029.
MSC’s vessels will be the largest Zhoushan Changhong has built since its debut in the shipbuilding business in 2013. It started out by building 40,000-dwt handysize bulkers.
In a separate deal, MSC was reported to have commissioned privately owned Jiangsu Hantong Group to build 10 to 12 LNG dual-fuelled container ships of 21,000 teu at $235m apiece for 2027 and 2028 delivery.
The deal marked Jiangsu Hantong’s debut in the boxship sector.
Jiangsu Hantong is expanding its shipbuilding capacity by adding one new dry dock and MSC’s container ships will be built there.
Sources said Zhoushan Changhong plans to ramp up its production capacity by transforming part of the ship repair facilities that it leases from Jinhai Intelligent Manufacturing.
It plans to build some of MSC’s 19,000-teu newbuildings there.
Multiple shipbuilding players said MSC is approaching almost all Chinese shipyards that have potential to build container ships, including the collapsed Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries.
They said owner Zhang Zhirong is trying to reactivate the yard and is working with hull block manufacturers to build vessels. However, others have questioned if it is possible to secure refund guarantees for such projects.
Clarksons’ SIN shows MSC has built up an orderbook of 113 newbuildings of which 102 are container ships, the rest being passenger vessels and cruise ships.
Aponte has been growing his fleet exponentially for the past few years and MSC now controls more than one-fifth of the world’s container ships, according to data from Alphaliner.
