A pairing of Idan Ofer-controlled Eastern Pacific Shipping and liner giant Gianluigi Aponte’s MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company is being named as the parties behind a surprise four-ship KRW 514.8bn ($370.5m) order for LNG bunker vessels (LNGBVs) in South Korea.
Bunker industry sources said EPS and MSC are hooking up in a joint venture on the order for LNGBVs at HD Hyundai Mipo as the groundswell of LNG dual-fuelled container ship newbuildings continues to mount up.
TradeWinds understands the LNGBVs are 18,000-cbm capacity units with the total contract value indicating a per-vessel price of $92.6m.
Shipyard holding group company HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE), said on Friday that it has signed a contract to build four LNG bunkering vessels with a shipping company based in Asia without naming the contracting party.
HD KSOE gave a total price for the orders of KRW 514.8bn ($370.5m) and said the four vessels will be built by HD Hyundai Mipo.
They are scheduled to be delivered by October 2028.
The new slew of LNGBV orders from two major shipowners with LNG dual-fuelled tonnage surprised some in the sector today.
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 EPS and MSC would appear to represent two major owners taking hold of the supply infrastructure for theirs and possibly other LNG dual-fuelled vessels. Both shipowners have invested heavily in LNG dual-fuelled tonnage.
There has been a run of LNGBV newbuildings at shipyards this year both to fill a perceived gap in the build-out of the vessels needed to supply the burgeoning LNG-fuelled market but also on the back of a fresh surge towards LNG as a marine fuel.
Industry players pointed to Danish behemoth AP Moller-Maersk’s move to the fuel with orders for over 60 LNG dual-fuelled container ships.
In the recent rush of container ship ordering others have also followed.
DNV’s most recent monthly figures for October show that 66 orders were placed for vessels that can use LNG as a fuel, with 58 of these being container ships.
The classification society statistics detail that there are 609 LNG-fuelled vessels in operation, with a further 632 ships on order.
The bulk are container ships comprising 123 existing dual-fuelled LNG vessels with a further 303 under construction.
DNV figures show there are now 65 LNGVs in operation and a further 24 on order.
HD Hyundai Group yards have amassed contracts for seven LNGBVs this year.
