Mega Chinese shipbuilding contract goes to JYSC

Jiujiang Yingxin Shipbuilding Company, one of the largest private shipbuilders in China has recently signed a large newbuild contract with Dalian Haichang.

The contract involves twenty 60,000DWT bulkers and worth over US$900 million. This is so far the largest single new-build contract in China in terms of contract value. The new contract is Dalian Haichang’s second largest one since the company ordered four 300,000DWT tankers in 2002. With these new bulk ships, Haichang has an annual transportation capacity of over ten million tonnes and become one the largest bulk ship owner in China.

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Evergreen jv for Chinese yard shelved

Taipei: Container Liner Evergreen Marine’s parent, Evergreen Group, has shelved a plan to invest in a Chinese shipyard due to weak market conditions.

Evergreen had intended to form a shipbuilding joint venture in the southern Chinese port city of Quanzhou with the local government. “With the change of the market, current timing is not good to diversity into shipbuilding industry,” the company said. “As a result, the plan to invest in a shipyard has been shelved.” The planned shipyard reportedly would have had the capacity to make ships of 350,000 tonnes and would have been ready to start production in 2011. However, orders for new ships slowed worldwide in the past year as rising energy prices and increasing capacity put pressure on the margins of global container shipping firms. The market outlook is expected to worsen in the second half on rising costs and global economic uncertainty, analysts and industry executives say.

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Iran to launch major oil and gas projects

Iran is preparing more than 15 major oil and gas projects involving a “new method” to attract local and foreign investment, the head of Iran’s state-owned energy firm told.

 

It was not clear if the “new method” meant a revision of Iran’s “buy-back” terms for oil and gas deals which have been unpopular with foreign investors in the past. The move comes as many particularly Western firms are reviewing investment plans in Iran or quitting because of a dispute with the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear plans. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will henceforth present its oil and gas projects using a new method to domestic and international investors,” Seifollah Jashnsaz, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company said. Under so-called buy-backs, companies hand over operations of fields to NIOC after development and then receive payment from oil or gas production for a few years to cover their investment. “We will prepare project packages ready to be introduced and submitted to international financial markets,” Jashnsaz said. “Each one of these packages is a major project and there are more than 15, so that we can attract foreign partners and new financial resources. We received a good reception in this respect from both European and Asian companies,” he said. He said that, of more than 15 projects, 10 would be put out to tender before the close of the Iranian year, which ends in March 2009. Iran, with the world’s fourth largest oil output, produces more than 4 million barrels of crude a day. But analysts say it needs the foreign technology, if not cash, to expand output.

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