US shipping investment firm Delos Shipping has placed orders at two Korean yards for the construction of a total of twelve 93,000 cu m very large ethane carriers (VLECs).
According to shipbroking sources, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries have each secured orders from Delos Shipping for three firm ships plus three options.
The total value of the order is around $1.5bn with delivery scheduled to start from the second half of 2020 and the vessels will be fixed to Chinese company Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical under long-term charter contracts.
In March, Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical announced a plan to set up a joint venture with US company Energy Transfer Partners to develop a new ethane export terminal in the US Gulf Coast to feed ethane to the company’s petrochemical plants in Lianyungang of China.
