George Procopiou’s Dynacom Tankers has tapped the resale newbuilding market for the first time in almost a decade.
The Greek company, which has contracted about 40 tankers in the past two years, is said to have added two VLCC resales to its massive orderbook.
Shipbuilding players said it has acquired two 306,000-dwt crude carriers booked at China’s Hengli Heavy Industry (Hengli HI).
They were ordered by Chinese private petrochemical company Hengli Group — the group company of Hengli HI — in September 2023.
The duo were to help to diversify the shipyard’s product portfolio, as most large shipbuilding companies in China aim to build high-value-added, high-cost vessels.
Brokers following the Chinese shipbuilding market said Dynacom has paid about $122m each for the scrubber-fitted ships, which will be powered by conventional fuel.
S&P Global’s maritime portal shows Hengli HI’s orderbook has only two VLCCs, Hull Nos T300k-1 and T300k-2, for delivery in March and December 2025.
The acquisition of the two VLCCs is believed to be Dynacom’s first purchase of resale newbuildings in nine years.
According to VesselsValue, Dynacom’s last deal in the resale market was in 2015, when it bought a suezmax from CarVal Investors for $59m.
Built by New Times Shipbuilding, the 157,400-dwt tanker trades as Antigua 1 (built 2016).
With the purchase of Hengli’s crude carriers, Dynacom would have eight VLCC newbuildings on its orderbook.
Important client
New Times Shipbuilding is building four LNG-ready 320,000-dwt vessels, while CSSC Tianjin Shipbuilding — a subsidiary of state-owned Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co — will construct two.
Dynacom ordered these six VLCCs, which will all be fitted with scrubbers, last year at a reported cost of around $115m each.
New Times is scheduled to deliver the first vessel in late 2026 and the three others in 2027. CSSC Tianjin is set to deliver one VLCC at the end of 2026 and one in the first quarter of 2027.
Procopiou is an important client for the reborn Hengli HI. His dry bulk company Sea Traders has 14 wide-beam 82,000-dwt bulk carriers on order there. Ten were ordered last year and the company added four in February.
Hengli HI is scheduled to deliver them between June 2025 and the end of 2026.
Hengli HI is the former STX Dalian Shipbuilding, established by South Korea’s STX Group.
It exited shipbuilding in 2013 with the collapse of the market. Hengli acquired STX Dalian in 2022 for CNY 1.73bn ($240m) to turn it into an offshore manufacturing base and shipbuilding yard.
