Greek shipowner George Economou’s appetite for newbuildings shows no sign of being satiated.
With the ink hardly dry on a deal for a series of suezmax tankers at China’s New Times Shipbuilding, Economou’s TMS Tankers has signed a new tanker order with another Chinese shipyard for three 115,000-dwt product carriers.
The latest deal lifts Economou’s spending on tanker newbuildings in one month to about $460m.
Shipbuilding sources said TMS has contracted Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry Yangzhou Shipyard (Cosco HI Yangzhou) to construct the tankers.
TMS is said to have opted for conventional marine fuel to power the aframaxes and is fitting them with scrubbers.
Sources said TMS is paying less than $60m per ship and is scheduled to take delivery of them in 2025.
Officials at Cosco HI Yangzhou were not available for comment at the time of writing.
TMS’ LR2 contract is said to be the second tanker newbuilding deal inked by the Greek company in recent weeks.
The company’s earlier order involved four firm suezmax tankers at New Times.
TMS is believed to have inked the contract for the four 157,000-dwt crude tanker newbuildings at the end of last year.
The suezmaxes, which will run on conventional fuel, were reported to have cost $72m per ship. TMS was also reported to have held an option to install scrubbers on the tankers.
Jiangsu-based New Times is scheduled to deliver two vessels at the end of 2024 and the other two in early 2025.
Shipbuilding brokers said they are seeing an increase in enquiries for tanker newbuildings amid the tanker market recovery.
“Some companies started enquiring on tankers in the middle of last year but many did not make the move to order them due to the relatively high newbuilding prices,” said one Asia-based broker.
“We think they [shipowners] realised that newbuilding prices are not going to fall a great deal and if they are to delay their orders further, there may not be any early berths available from shipyards.”
The berths for TMS’ four suezmax tanker newbuildings at New Times are said to have been made available after the Chinese shipyard rejigged its production schedule to squeeze out early delivery slots.
“Shipyards that we know are reluctant to release their 2026 berths due to risks in currency exchange and rising inflation,” said a broker.
Scaling up
Economou is not only keen to beef up his tanker fleet. His bulker company Cardiff Marine was reported to have signed a letter of intent for 14 bulker newbuildings with “dormant” Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries.
The deal was for four capesize bulkers and up to 10 kamsarmaxes. The price and delivery schedule are not known.
Several shipbuilding observers are sceptical about Jiangsu Rongsheng being able to deliver the bulkers, as it exited the shipbuilding business in 2014 following the global financial crash.
Jiangsu Rongsheng was once China’s largest privately owned shipyard. Established in 2006 during the shipbuilding market boom, it has four dry docks and at its peak could produce 5m dwt of ships per year.
