Shanghai: Norwegian owner John Fredriksen’s Golden Ocean yesterday announced that it has exercised its right to cancel the construction contract for its Golden Nantong bulker with Jinhai Heavy Industry.
Golden Ocean ordered five bulkers at Jinhai. It cancelled four of them in November and December last year. Golden Nantong was the last one in the contract.
Golden Ocean said Jinhai has referred the matters to arbitration, but said it is confident the company has a strong case. The company's claim towards the yard is secured by refund guarantees from two of the top four Chinese banks and it has in aggregate paid $130.3m on these five vessels and has drawn $41.6m under the related loan facility.
Golden Ocean is now left with four newbuilding contracts in total. [20/02/13]
