Americas News
Fifth Month of New Tanker Orders for Scorpio
Scorpio Tankers Inc. [NYSE:SNG] (Scorpio) has announced the placement of six more newbuilding contracts at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co. Ltd. (HMD), bringing to 39 the number of new vessels it has on order, and making April the fifth consecutive month of new vessel order placements by the New York-listed firm.
The product tanker operator currently owns 14 tankers.
Four of the new orders are medium range (MR) tankers already under construction at HMD for an unnamed, unaffiliated third party, with Scorpio saying the transaction will be completed by way of novation of the existing shipbuilding agreements.
At a cost of approximately $36.5 million each and due for delivery between June and September this year, Scorpio said the vessels were "substantially identical" to the STI Amber-Class vessels it had ordered at HMD.
The other two vessels are Handymax ice class-1A vessels for a cost of approximately $31.5 million each, and have estimated delivery dates in the third quarter of 2014.
The multiple newbuilding orders come at a time when the shipping industry is struggling with oversupply in many sectors, however in January John Fredriksen said he expects oil and fuel tankers, particularly product tankers, to lead the shipping industry toward recovery.
