Chinese yard bags major order

Yangzijiang Shipbuilding secures half a billion dollars worth of contracts for iron ore carriers.

In Chia, the Yangzijiang Shipbuilding has bagged a $510 million order to build six very large iron ore carriers to haul the commodity from Brazil, reports GCaptain.

Each vessel will have a capacity of 400,000 deadweight tons and are scheduled to be delivered from 2018 to 2019, the shipbuilder said in a statement to the Singapore stock exchange Wednesday. The ships, built for ICBC Leasing, are part of 30 such vessels that Chinese shipowners have placed to transport iron ore from Vale SA, Yangzijiang said.

According to the report, the orders may help provide some relief to shipbuilders in China amid shrinking demand for new vessels in recent years because of weakening economic growth. The country's builders have sought support from the government as excess capacity led to lower shipping rates and prompted some of their customers to cancel orders.