Page 34: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 1997)

FAR EAST UPDATE

Newbuilding Contracts Continue

To Boost Market by Alan Thorpe, international editor

An additional domestic VLCC newbuilding project has reached the contractual stage in Japan, extending the number of orders placed this year by Japanese oper- ators to six. lino Kaiun Kaisha's contract with Ishikawajima

Harima Heavy Industries (IHI) for a 258,000-dwt VLCC, which is most suited to trade at Japanese terminals, has been implemented on the basis of an understanding with prospective charterer Tokyo

Tanker. The double-hulled new- building is scheduled for delivery at IHI's Kure yard in mid-1999.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has signed a contract with

Hong Kong's Golden Ocean Group for three double-hulled VLCCs at

YlObn ($78.9 million) each. The prices of VLCCs fell below the Y8bn mark in 1994/95, but recovered to the Y9bn mark in 1997. Sources believe that the con- tract between KHI and the U.K. company could indicate another upturn in the VLCC price mark.

The three VLCCs will be built at

KHI's Sakaide Shipyard in the fall of 1999 and are scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2000.

Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line) has chosen a Japanese yard for the construction of two 100,000-dwt

Aframax crude oil tankers. They will be built at Imabari

Shipbuilding, with delivery dates scheduled for the summers of 1998 and 1999. Shoei Kisen, the wholly- owned shipowner/operator of

Imabari Shipbuilding, will become the owner of the two vessels. K

Line will operate them under a seven-year time charter contract with Shoei Kisen.

Sumitomo Heavy Industries (SHI) is poised to launch the so- called 'parallel' shipbuilding sys- tem at its dock in Oppama

Shipyard. In August last year, the

Japanese Ministry of Transport lifted the restrictions, which pre- vented the side by side construc- tion of several vessels at one dock.

The ministry acted to allow

Japanese shipbuilders to boost their efficiency and productivity to compete with South Korea.

Ugland International Holdings has expanded its vehicle carrier interests with an investment in new tonnage potentially worth $162 million. The contract, placed with Tsuneishi Shipyard, calls for one newbuilding, with a capacity to transport 6,100 cars at a speed of 20.1 knots, plus options for the construction of two similar vessels. Delivery is scheduled for

May 1999.

Euro Marine Carriers (EMC) has placed an order with Japan's Shin

Kurushima Dockyard for the con- struction of two autocarriers, each with a capacity of 900 vehi- cles, with one on option. They will be delivered to the Netherlands- based, intra-European auto carrier in March, June and September 1999, and will replace the present fleet of vessels.

Japanese shipbuilders attracted contracts for 8.2 million grt of mer- chant ships to be registered with foreign firms in the financial year ended in March. The figure, which includes tonnage to the account of overseas subsidiaries of Japanese companies, is virtually on par with that recorded in the preceding fis- cal period. There has been a reduction in the number of vessels, though, from 265 to 246. Well over half of the new orders are com- prised of bulkers, contributing 4.4 million grt, with tankers being the next largest generic group at 2.6 million grt.

Tokyo-based think tank Japan

Maritime Research Institute (Jamri) has forecasted that Japan stands to lose more of its world share of newbuildings to China and South Korea. Seji Nagat- suka, chief researcher at Jamri, said that Japan's share of the world's newbuildings slipped below 40 percent for the first time in 1996. He argued that Japan's worldwide market share could soon be down to 30 percent, contin- uing a trend of losing business to

South Korean and Chinese coun- terparts which started in the early 1990s.

Japan and South Korea have agreed to suspend 15-year bilater- al shipbuilding summit talks by making the latest two-day meeting held in Cheju, South Korea, the last. Meanwhile, Japanese ship- builders are cautiously expanding their capacity on the back of a weak yen, the growing demand for

VLCCs and strong orderbooks. A report by the Japan Ship Export- ers' Association (JSEA) showed a total of 407 export ships, totaling 14.5 million grt, in national order- books as at the end of April.

Japanese shipbuilders are look- ing to recovery after being chal- lenged by South Korean counter- parts since 1993, and have set about increasing their competitive edge with a combination of drastic rationalization and modernization.

Many of the major builders have cut building costs substantially, taking advantage of newly devel- oped computer systems.

Iran's long-awaited project for a series of Suezmax crude oil carrier buildings has been awarded to

South Korea's Daewoo Heavy

Industries (DHI). DHI hopes to fulfil the entire NITC delivery pro- gram over a 12-month period from mid-1999 onward, following the

A coastal tanker newbuild by Malaysia Shipyard & Engineering is shown above.

Red Teal is pictured undergoing FPS0 conversion at Keppel Tuas. 34 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News