Centrofin Management has been revealed as the firm ordering a raft of suezmaxes at Samsung Heavy Industries.
The Korean yard announced last week it had won suezmax orders without revealing who was behind the contracts.
Brokers now reveal Greece’s Centrofin has committed for three firm plus two option suezmaxes with the delivery of the units due from September 2022 and continuing through into 2023. The ships are costing $58.2m each.
Samsung Heavy also revealed today it has won a $2.5bn contract to supply ship blocks and equipment from an unspecified firm that would account for nearly 30% of the company’s estimated sales this year.
The order – one of the largest in Korean history – is thought to have come from the Zvezda shipyard in the Russian Far East in which Samsung Heavy is helping in an icebreaking LNG carrier newbuild project.
On Friday, a steel cutting ceremony took place for the first in a new series of 15 icebreaking LNG carriers, ordered by SCF Group from the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex to serve the Arctic LNG 2 project.
“The start of construction of the first in this new generation of LNG carriers by Zvezda is a significant milestone for the Russian shipbuilding industry, which has never before constructed vessels with this level of engineering complexity,” commented Igor Tonkovidov, the president and CEO of Sovcomflot.
After a barren first three quarters, Q4 is proving to be bountiful for South Korea’s top shipbuilders, the late rally pushing them closer, but still likely short of their annual targets.
