Korean yard wins Indian orders

STX Shipbuilding in Korea has won orders to build 14 new ships, worth more than $750 million from Indian shipowners who are buying new cargo carriers to cash in on the growing global demand for carrying raw materials such as steel, iron ore and coal.

The companies involved are the state-run Shipping Corp. of India Ltd (SCI), Essar Shipping & Logistics Ltd and Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd.

SCI, India?s biggest shipping company, signed a contract with STX to build six 57,000 DWT Handymax bulk carriers at a price of $44.9 million per vessel. The new ships will be built at STX?s Dalian facility in China and deliveries to SCI will start in 2011. STX won the SCI order beating Chinese shipbuilder Jinling Shipyard, a unit of state-owned China Changjiang National Shipping Corp.

Essar Shipping, part of the Essar Group, has placed an order with STX for building six 98,000 DWT bulk carriers at a total cost of $378 million. These ships will also be built at Dalian and will be delivered to Essar beginning the second half of 2011 or January 2012.

Essar is expected to announce the deal officially in the next few days.

Great Eastern Shipping, India?s biggest private sector shipping company by fleet size and revenues, in October had ordered two 80,700 DWT dry bulk carriers from STX for delivery in February and April 2011.