COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation (CSET) has expanded its tanker orderbook with a single chemical carrier newbuilding.
The board of the listed oil and gas shipping business of COSCO Shipping Group has approved the construction a 9,200 dwt stainless steel unit at Wuchang Shipbuilding.
The deal, worth about $25m is “conducive to optimising the company’s chemical fleet structure and business layout and improving overall profitability”.
COSCO’s energy shipping arm sports a fleet of more than 150 crude and product tankers and has stakes in nearly 90 LNG carriers, in addition to more than 10 LPG units and now 10 chemical tankers, of which two newbuildings.
Earlier this year, CSET also lined up an investment plan of nearly $380m for two aframaxes, two LR2s, and two panamax tankers.