MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company’s appetite for newbuildings continues unabated, with the company spending about $1.3bn on 10 LNG dual-fuelled neo-panamax container ships.
The Gianluigi Aponte-controlled organisation has returned to China’s Zhoushan Changhong International Shipyard to order the 10,300-teu vessels to be delivered between the second half of 2026 and 2027.
The deal lifts the total number of container ship newbuildings MSC has on order at Zhoushan Changhong to 20. The company’s earlier vessels, of 11,500 teu, were ordered at the end of last year and can run on LNG and conventional bunkers.
News of MSC planning to order the 10 newbuildings was first published in TradeWinds in June. Then, the company was reported to be scouting for at least six 8,000-teu vessels.
Shipbuilding brokers said several shipyards, including Hyundai Heavy Industries and Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, participated in MSC’s tender.
They believe Zhoushan Changhong was picked due to the early delivery dates on offer and its competitive pricing.
Zhoushan Changhong revealed that the design of the 299.95-metre wide and 45.6-metre long boxship, developed by CIMC Oric, is a new generation of 10,000-box class dual-fuel container ships that are able to be deployed to the Black Sea through the Turkish Strait.
The 10,300-teu vessel can cruise at speeds of up to 20 knots and will be fitted with C-type LNG tanks that will allow it to undertake a round trip between Central Europe and Central America.
The shipyard said the neo-panamax newbuildings will meet the International Maritime Organization’s Tier III NOx standards and its Energy Efficiency Design Index rating is about 50% lower than the stringent Phase 3 emissions baseline.
The boxships with also be equipped with high-power shaft generators, a shore power system, an energy-saving pipeline and a ballast water treatment device.
Zhoushan Changhong did not disclose the price but brokers believe they will cost around $130m each.
Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network shows MSC with 74 boxship newbuildings of between 1,800 teu and 16,000 teu under construction in South Korea and China, excluding the latest 10 ships at Zhoushan Changhong.
All of MSC’s 8,100-teu newbuildings and above are LNG dual-fuelled, while the feeder ships of 1,800 teu and 3,700 teu will be powered by very low-sulphur fuel oil.
A boxship specialist, Zhoushan Changhong has largely built feeder ships to date. But in the second half of 2021, it was contracted by Angeliki Frangou-led Navios Maritime Partners to construct 10 units of 5,600 teu each.
MSC’s newbuildings will also be the largest container vessels the Chinese shipyard has contracted so far.
Zhoushan Changhong said its orderbook currently stands at 48 units, of which 16 are LNG dual-fuelled newbuildings.
Last month, Zhoushan Changhong was reported to have inked a newbuilding contract worth about $488m from low-profile tanker player Kurow Shipping.
The order was for four firm dual-fuelled LR2 tanker newbuildings with an option for four additional vessels.
Kurow is said to have “Turkish roots”, but S&P Global Market’s database shows it is a Marshall Islands-registered company with an address in Dubai.
