China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES) has announced that it has officially signed shipbuilding contracts for the construction of ten 400,000dwt VLOCs with three domestic yards.
Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and Beihai Shipbuilding Industry will each build four VLOCs for CMES, the remaining two vessels will be done by China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu).
Total value of the vessels is about $850m, and deliveries are scheduled between the first half of 2018 and the end of 2019.
CMES signed a contract of affreightment (COA) with Vale this week to transport iron from Brazil to China over a period of up to 27 years.
In September 2015, CMES signed a 20-year COA with Vale for the transport of around 6m tons of iron ore from Brazil to China each year, with an option to extend the contract by an additional five years.
