Hunter Group Orders One More VLCC to Feature Scrubber

Norwegian investment company Hunter Group has decided to buy one additional 300,000 dwt very large crude carrier (VLCC) newbuilding from South Korean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME).

The agreement for the scrubber-fitted eco-design VLCC (Hull No. 5470) has been signed between Hunter Group’s subsidiary Hunter Tankers and DSME.

The ship is expected to be delivered in July 2020.

It will be outfitted with a SOx scrubber from Wärtsilä, according to Hunter Group.

In April, Hunter Group entered into an agreement with Apollo Asset for the transfer of shipbuilding contracts for four VLCCs. A month later, Hunter exercised options for the construction of three additional VLCCs at DSME. The 300,000 dwt tankers will feature a length of 336 meters and a width of 60 meters.

Now, Hunter Tankers announced an advancement of the delivery of hulls 5465, 5466 and 5467 by a total of four months. The first vessel will be advanced to the middle of March 2020 from May 2020, the second to the end of May 2020 from June 2020 and the third to the middle of July 2020 from August 2020.

Finally, Hunter Tankers has received a further extension of declaration of the existing options until January 15, 2019. This option is for up to three vessels with delivery in the first half of 2021.

“We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with DSME for the acquisition of one additional vessel at what we consider to be a very attractive price and delivery time. With this acquisition we have eight sister vessels under construction at DSME, all outfitted with scrubbers,” Erik Frydendal, CEO of Hunter Group, commented.

“We also greatly appreciate DSME in accepting our request for earlier deliveries for vessel nos. 5465/66/67. This will enable us to have a larger fleet of world class quality tonnage operational earlier, in what we believe will be a strong tanker market,” Frydendal added.

“We are very pleased to have further strengthened our partnership with Hunter Group through this additional newbuilding deal after seven VLCC newbuilding orders already having been placed,” SL Jung, CEO of DSME, said.

So far this year, DSME has won 38 newbuilding orders worth some USD 4.86 billion, including 12 LNG carriers, 18 very large crude oil carriers, 7 ultra large container vessels and one special purpose ship.