MJL Bangladesh, a Dhaka-listed lubricants and LPG producer, trader and shipowner, is ordering an 11,000-cbm pressurised LPG carrier that it says will be ready for delivery in 2026.
The contract for the vessel, which will cost $32.5m, has been approved by the MJL board, the company said in a statement to the Dhaka exchange.
An additional $1.5m has been allocated for shipbuilding supervision and other related fees.
While the company did not disclose which yard would build the ship, market sources told TradeWinds that the vessel would be built in Japan.
MJL Bangladesh was founded in 1998 as Mobil Jamuna Lubricants on an initiative of ExxonMobil. The company’s main shareholders are Jamuna Oil Company, a subsidiary of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation, and EC Securities.
The company’s core business is its lube oil blending plant, the first in Bangladesh, which uses base oil supplied by ExxonMobil to blend lubricants.
Subsidiary company Omera LPG controls about a fifth of the Bangladeshi LPG market, despite having about 30 competitors, according to Quincannon Asia.
On the shipping front, MJL owns the 107,000-dwt LR2 tanker Omera Legacy (built 2005), together with three modern 1,200-cbm and 500-cbm LPG carriers that operate on Bangladesh’s vast inland waterway network.
This past June, MJL ordered a 115,000-dwt aframax tanker at DH Shipbuilding in South Korea that will be delivered in 2026.
The company considered buying a secondhand 10 to 12-year-old aframax but opted for a new ship due to high S&P prices. A new vessel would offer better operational cost efficiency, higher earnings, environmental sustainability and a much longer operational life, the company said.
