China’s Hengli Heavy Industry (Hengli HI) is bolstering its product portfolio with very large gas carriers to satiate its huge shipbuilding capacity.
Shipbuilding sources the Dalian-based shipyard has made its debut into the gas carrier segment with an order for a series of VLAC newbuildings.
Hengli Group, the parent company of Hengli HI, is said to have signed up for at least four vessels.
“The number of VLAC newbuildings may be more than four”, said a broker. “No one knows the exact number of vessels as it is an in-house order”.
The price for the 93,000-cbm vessels has yet to emerge, but the last VLAC contract inked in China at Jiangnan Shipyard was reported to cost $125m.
Sources said Hengli Group has ordered the gas carriers for business involving petrochemicals, textiles, and polyester materials.
They added Hengli Group would also consider selling them if the “price is right” — a move that would mirror the sale of the group’s VLCC newbuildings.
Hengli HI made its debut in the VLCC segment last year with an order of two 306,000-dwt newbuildings from its parent company. It later lifted the number of VLCCs ordered to six.
In April this year, Hengli was reported to have sold a pair of VLCCs to Greek shipowner George Procopiou’s Dynacom Tankers for $122m each.
Sources said Hengli is in close talks with Kriton Lendoudis-led Evalend Shipping on sales of two other VLCC newbuildings.
Hengli HI is a relative “newcomer” to the shipbuilding industry as it was only established in late 2022 when Hengli Group acquired the former STX Dalian for CNY 1.73bn ($256m).
The Chinese company has pumped a further CNY 18bn to restructure the shipyard to deliver about 40 vessels annually at peak operation.
Hengli started by building handysize bulk carriers for the group and Chinese owners.
But it has since added kamsarmaxes, capesizes, large ore carriers and aframax product carriers to its orderbook.
The shipyard recently debuted into the mega-size container ship segment when Mediterranean Shipping Company inked 10 LNG dual-fuelled 21,000-teu newbuildings there.
Hengli Group is expanding the shipyard’s capacity by putting down CNY 11bn to build the yard’s phase 2 project, which will have an annual shipbuilding capacity of 1.8m dwt as well as 1.8m tonnes of steel processing capacity.
The new facility will lift Hengli Heavy’s annual shipbuilding capacity to 8.1m tonnes, more than twice its current output.
Hengli Heavy is set to go public via Hengli Group company’s Guangdong Songfa Ceramics, which is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The ceramics company will take over 100% of Hengli Heavy and then focus on shipbuilding.
