Four Capers for Sungdong

South Korean shipbuilder Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has secured a contract with Brazil’s mining company Vale for the construction of four 180,000 dwt bulk carriers for around $250m. The newbuildings will have a length of 295 m and a breadth of 45 m with a cruising speed of 15.2 knots and will be delivered from the end of 2011 onward.

Vale currently operates about seven Capesize bulkers but it intends to own more large bulkers from 2011 onwards to raise logistics competitiveness. Sungdong has so far received a total of eight newbuilding orders in the second half of 2009 including the four 158,000 dwt tanker orders signed last month.

An official from Sungdong said, “Sungdong’s technical expertise and excellent business performance seem to have been known to many foreign shipowners. Our development of the on-land construction method for large ships in the Capesize bulker class and our astonishing growth in a short period of time has led to the recent order intakes.” Sungdong’s order backlog totals 88 ships of around $6.5bn and it is the world’s tenth largest shipyard in orderbook terms (cgt/dwt basis), according to Clarkson Research Services.