China’s Hengli Heavy Industry is bolstering its product portfolio with very large gas carriers to satiate its huge shipbuilding capacity.
Shipbuilding sources said the Dalian-based yard has made its debut in the gas carrier segment with an order for a series of very large ammonia carriers.
Parent company Hengli Group is said to have signed up for at least four vessels.
One broker said: “The number of VLAC newbuildings may be more than four. 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 signed 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 that the company would consider selling them if the “price is right” — a move that would mirror the sale of its VLCC newbuildings.
Hengli Heavy made its debut in the VLCC segment last year with an order for two 306,000-dwt newbuildings from its parent company. It later lifted the number to six.
In April this year, Hengli Group was reported to have sold a pair of VLCCs to Greek shipowner George Procopiou’s Dynacom Tankers for $122m each.
Sources said the group is in close talks with Kriton Lendoudis-led Evalend Shipping on sales of two other VLCC newbuildings.
Hengli Heavy is a relative shipbuilding newcomer. It was only established in late 2022, when Hengli Group acquired the former STX Dalian for CNY 1.73bn ($256m).
The group has pumped in a further CNY 18bn to restructure the shipyard to deliver about 40 vessels annually at peak operation.
Hengli Heavy started by building handysize bulk carriers for the group and Chinese owners.
It has since added kamsarmaxes, capesizes, large ore carriers and aframax product carriers to its orderbook.
The shipyard recently debuted in the mega-size container ship segment when MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company ordered 10 LNG dual-fuel 21,000-teu newbuildings there.
Hengli Group is expanding the yard’s capacity by putting down CNY 11bn to build its 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 the yard’s annual shipbuilding capacity to 8.1m tonnes.
Hengli Heavy is set to go public via Hengli Group’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.
