Liner owner and operator X-Press Feeders Group in Singapore has moved into the aframax product tanker sector.
Its shipowning arm, Eastaway, debuted in the tanker arena last summer, acquiring a secondhand ship. It is adding one more vessel of the ship type to its fleet by splashing out around $61m on a resale newbuilding.
Shipping sources said Eastaway is one of the three companies behind LR2 newbuildings booked at Zhoushan Changhong International Shipyard.
Shmulick (Shmuel) Yoskovitz, chief executive of X-Press Feeders, confirmed that Eastaway has one 115,000-dwt product carrier on order at the Chinese shipyard.
He said the LR2 tanker was a resale newbuilding that the Hartnoll family-controlled company bought from Zhoushan Changhong.
Yoskovitz did not disclose the price, but shipbuilding sources believed Eastaway has paid around $61m for the ship, which will be fitted with an open-loop scrubber. It will take delivery in the second half of 2025.
“The LR2 tankers formed part of [fleet] diversification of the Hartnoll family asset,” Yoskovitz added.
Sources said Eastaway diversified into the LR2 segment last year by acquiring the 109,900-dwt Hibernian Tide (built 2019) from Capital Ship Management. The price was never reported, but VesselsValue shows the Chinese-built vessel was worth close to $65m last October.
With the tanker market staying strong, the market value of the Hibernian Tide has gone up and its current value is slightly over $71m.
Methanol sextet
Yoskovitz said the Hibernian Tide is trading on spot.
“We have not decided how we will be trading the LR2 newbuilding at Zhoushan Changhong, as the delivery date is quite far away,” he said.
Earlier this month, X-Press Feeders disclosed that Eastaway has ordered six firm methanol dual-fuel 1,250-teu feeder container ship newbuildings at CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding. The deal included an option for two additional ships.
Eastaway will take delivery of the first ship in the third quarter of 2025 and the remaining five ships are scheduled for delivery through to the third quarter of 2026.
The order brings the tally of dual-fuel vessels in the pipeline for the Asian feeder specialist to 14.
Sea Consortium, a sister company to Eastaway, also has 12 conventionally fuelled 7,000-teu container ships under construction at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding.
It ordered the neo-panamaxes in 2021 at an average price of $75.3m each.
