Greece's George Economou is being named as the shipowner behind an order for very large ammonia carrier newbuildings (VLACs) at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries.
On Tuesday, the Koje-based shipbuilder announced that it has won a contract to build a pair of such ships worth KRW 310.8bn ($240m), or $120m each.
Samsung did not disclose the identity of its counterpart, just disclosing that the buyer is from the Oceania region.
Shipbuilding sources are telling TradeWinds that it was Economou’s Cardiff Group, which booked the 93,000-cbm gas carriers.
The newbuildings are Samsung's first VLAC contract this year and the shipyard is scheduled to deliver them by June 2027.
VLACs are essentially the very large gas carriers (VLGCs) of the next generation, in that they have been designed to be capable of carrying full cargoes of ammonia.
Constructing such ships comes at comparatively low additional capital expenditure over conventional VLGCs.
If Economou's connection to the newbuildings is confirmed, it would mark his return to VLGCs.
The Greek owner exited that business in 2018, when his then Nasdaq-listed Dryships outfit sold a quartet of 78,700-cbm Hyundai-built vessels to JP Morgan: the Vega Song (ex-Mont Gele, built 2018), as well as the 2017-built Vega Sea(ex-Anderida), Vega Star (ex-Aisling) and Vega Sun (ex-Mont Fort).
Since then, Economou has been extremely busy ordering other types of newbuildings instead.
He is calculated to have booked around 40 new vessels over the past two years, from bulk carriers to tankers to LNG ships, at various shipyards in China and South Korea.
Including the latest pair of VLACs, Samsung contracted a total of 28 newbuildings this year with a total value of $6.83bn. That corresponds to about 72% of its sales target of $9.5bn.
Samsung's newbuildings include seven LNG carriers, 16 methanol dual-fuel 16,000-teu container ships, two crude oil tankers and one FLNG.
