A pairing of Idan Ofer-controlled Eastern Pacific Shipping and Gianluigi Aponte’s MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company liner giant is being named as the party behind a surprise KRW 514.8bn ($370.5m) order for four LNG bunker vessels in South Korea.
Bunker industry sources said the companies are linking up in a joint venture on the order at HD Hyundai Mipo as the groundswell of LNG dual-fuel container ship newbuildings gathers momentum.
TradeWinds understands the LNGBVs are 18,000-cbm capacity units and the total contract value indicates a per-vessel price of $92.6m.
Shipyard holding group HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering said on Friday that it had signed a contract to build four LNGBVs with a shipping company based in Asia, without naming the contracting party.
The quartet is scheduled to be delivered by October 2028.
The new LNGBV orders from two major shipowners with LNG dual-fuel tonnage surprised some observers.
Most LNGBV orders have been placed by energy majors — in particular Shell and TotalEnergies — as they built out their offerings to the sector; by specialist small-scale LNG shipowners; or more recently by bunker suppliers and traders moving into the LNG space.
Shell is also in the market for four LNGBVs but has yet to complete the tender process it is running to select owners for this business.
The move by Eastern Pacific and MSC would appear to represent two major owners taking hold of the supply infrastructure for their LNG dual-fuel vessels and possibly other companies’ vessels too. Both shipowners have invested heavily in LNG dual-fuelled tonnage.
There has been a run of LNGBV newbuildings at shipyards this year, to fill a perceived gap in the build-out of the vessels needed to supply the burgeoning LNG-fuelled market and on the back of a fresh surge towards LNG as a marine fuel.
Industry players pointed to AP Moller-Maersk’s orders for more than 60 LNG dual-fuel boxships.
In the recent rush of container ship ordering, others have also followed.
DNV’s October figures show that 66 orders were placed for vessels that can use LNG as a fuel; 58 of these are container ships.
The classification society’s statistics show that there are 609 LNG-fuelled vessels in operation and 632 on order.
Most are container ships — 123 existing vessels and 303 under construction.
DNV figures show there are 65 LNGBVs in operation and 24 on order.
HD Hyundai Group yards have amassed contracts for seven LNGBVs this year.
