The order marks the accession of Southwest Maritime to the VLEC market. Currently the company has a fleet of 22 ships containing 17 LPG vessels and five oil tankers.

On 21 August Tianjin Southwest Maritime signed a term charter contract with Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical for two 15-year-old vessels with a total rent of about $500 million.

The new ship will provide raw material transportation services to the company's trading sector for the second phase of the Lianyungang petrochemical project and logistics transport services.

Last month, on August 24, a Satellite Petrochemical subsidiary signed two VLEC construction contracts with Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries, for a total amount of about $4.41. In a sale-leaseback contract STL also intends to sell ownership of the four new ships.

Satellite Petrochemical subsidiaries had previously built six ships at Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries to be transferred to MISC BERHAD and its wholly-owned subsidiary Portovenere and Lerici (Singapore) for the first phase of the Lianyungang project, signing a ship chartering agreement to provide logistics and transport services.

Maritime Business World