Tianjin Southwest Maritime orders VLEC pair at Jiangnan Shipyard

Tianjin Southwest Maritime has placed an order for the construction of two 98,000 cbm ethane carriers at Chinese Jiangnan Shipyard.

The very large ethane carriers (VLEC) are chartered by Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical (STL) to support anticipated growth in the production output in the second stage of development of STL’s new ethane cracking facility in Lianyungang.

 The pair is scheduled to be delivered between June and September in 2022.

The order is estimated to be worth around $220 million, and comes on the back of an order for four VLECs at the end of August at South Korean shipbuilding majors Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries.

Each shipbuilder has been entrusted with building two ships, which are set for delivery in 2022.

The latest order brings STL’s ordering tally to 12 units. The first 6 ships from the series were ordered in 2019 as part of the first phase of the project, and are slated for delivery in 2020.

According to STL, these ships are going to be the largest ethane transportation ships in the world.