Bank of Communications Financial Leasing (BoCom FL) has quietly stacked up its growing fleet with kamsarmax newbuildings.
Shipbuilding players said the Chinese leasing company has another four 82,000-dwt bulkers in its orderbook at Chengxi Shipyard, bringing the number of kamsarmaxes it has contracted there to 10.
One source familiar with BoCom FL said it booked the quartet six months ago but the deal was never reported.
BoCom FL’s earlier six ships were inked last year and are due for delivery from the end of this year to mid-2019.
The order is not a financing for clients, but one that expands BoCom FL’s own rapidly growing portfolio as an independent shipowner.
Reports 'inaccurate'
The company’s shipping head, deputy general manager Fang Xiuzhi, told TradeWinds reports that the newbuilding series was extended are inaccurate, and so are brokers’ price estimates of $27m per ship.
“We have a total of 10 kamsarmaxes on order at Chengxi and we signed them all five or six months ago, when steel prices were lower,” he said.
He explained that BoCom FL plans to act own some of the Chengxi kamsarmaxes outright and use its own staff to operate them in the time-charter market. But it has already secured established European shipowners as equity partners and commercial operators for two of the 10, and is seeking similar deals with other shipowner partners.
He declined to disclose the contract price or name his firm or prospective equity partners.
The proportion of partnered and wholly owned ships is yet to be determined.
“We have time,” he said. “Some ships will be delivered this year but some not until late 2019.”
The company has been active in the shipbuilding market, signing up for 35 tanker newbuildings in South Korea and China last year.
Charter employment
The series, which is estimated to be costing about $1.27bn, was ordered against long-term charters to Trafigura.
It includes suezmaxes, LR2s and MRs. Last month, Trafigura disclosed that it holds options to buy the ships at a later date.
BoCom FL has built up an owned fleet of nearly 250 vessels of a wide variety of tonnage types. About 190 of them were financed in foreign currency and the rest in renminbi for domestic owners. More than two-thirds of the fleet were built in China.
Chengxi is a state-owned shipyard under the control of southern yard group China State Shipbuilding Corp. Based in Jiangyin, Chengxi is sitting on an order backlog of 28 newbuildings, according to Clarksons’ Shipping Intelligence Network.
Ships contracted by Chengxi this year include four 70,000-dwt woodchip carriers from Singapore’s Nova Shipping and a pair of 40,000-dwt self-unloading bulkers from Canada’s CSL Group.
MR tanker debut
Reputed for building midsize bulkers, Chengxi debuted in the MR tanker segment last year when it was contracted by Hong Kong’s Goldwin Shipping to construct two 50,000-dwt newbuildings. The Japanese-designed product carriers will be built to IMO Tier III standards and are slated for delivery between late 2019 and the first half of 2020.
In August, Chengxi delivered the 18,600-dwt chemical tanker Ek River to Ektank in Sweden. The ship is built to ice-class 1A notation and is able to carry 12 different types of chemicals at once. The shipyard is scheduled to deliver sistership the Ek Stream soon.
