An order for two VLOCs looks to have done little to restore confidence in the battered down shares of Chinese shipbuilder Yangzijiang.
The Singapore-listed company said the contract for the two 325,000-dwt bulkers had been received from an unnamed Asian shipowner.
They will be built by the group’s Xinfu shipyard and delivered by June 2021. Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.
“The shipbuilding industry globally remains challenging with trade war concerns, declining orders, and fierce competition,” said Yangzijiang chief executive Ren Letian.
“In midst of this, it is very encouraging to see order flow for Yangzijiang as we secured the two new bulk carrier orders.”
Shares in Yangzijiang plummeted earlier this month after reports that veteran Liu Jianguo was being probed for serious disciplinary violations by the Communist Party of China's powerful anti-graft body.
Liu's career has been closely connected with Yangzijiang and he is chairman of the management committee of the Jiangsu Yuanlin Charity Foundation, which was set up by the shipbuilder's founder Ren Yuanlin and is funded by dividends from the yard, it said.
Separately, Yangzijiang said it had launched its first vessel using a floating dock rather than the traditional way of launching a vessel via slipway.
The operation involved an 82,000-dwt bulker and was carried out at its Taicang yard where it has teamed up with Japanese shipbuilder Mitsui E&S.
“With the first vessel built and launched by us without using a dock, we are scaling up in our capability for building of LNG vessels at our Taicang yard,” Yangzijiang said.
“This method of building and launching of vessels also has the advantages of improving shipbuilding efficiency, increasing output without having the limitations of dock capacity, reducing investment costs and enhancing capacity quickly.”
