At the end of April, Thailand’s Regional Container Lines (RCL) announced that it had signed contracts for two types of four newbuildings, including two 11,000 TEU container ships and two 4,400 TEU container ships, with “ trustworthy and renowned shipbuilders”.
According to shipbroker MB Shipbrokers, two 11,000 TEU container ships were built by Shnghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), and two 4,400 TEU container ships were constructed by Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group.
Among them, the 11,000 TEU container ship with single ship cost of US$125 million and total value of US$250 million is expected to be delivered in 2027; the 4,400 TEU container ship with single ship cost of US$59.7 million and total value of US$119.4 million is expected to be delivered in 2028.The total value of the 4 new ships is US$369.4 million.
RCL’s container ship order is the first newbuilding contract that Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group has made public this year. The shipbuilder last announced orders on December 2, 2024 for a total of 21 new ships with a total contract value of US$2.63 billion, covering a wide range of ship types such as container ships, bulk carriers, tankers, etc., including 6 x 17,000 TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships, 6 x 13,000 TEU methanol dual-fuel container ships, 4 x 39,000 DWT MR tankers, 2 x 4300TEU container ships and 3 45000DWT bulk carriers.
As of December 31, 2024, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group has order book for 245 ships, valued at about US$24.4 billion, of which the order value of clean energy ships accounts for about 74% of the total value, and the production schedule of the order book has been up to 2030 at the farthest.
It is reported that Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group has completed the capital injection into Tsuneishi Group Zhoushan Shipbuilding on March 24 this year. As a result, Tsuneishi Group Zhoushan Shipbuilding has become an associate company in which Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group owns 34% of the equity.
In addition, in order to speed up the construction of clean energy ships, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group spent about RMB 3 billion to build the Yangzi Hongyuan Green High-tech Clean Energy Shipbuilding Base Project has been formally started. Upon completion, the project will become the group’s main base for the construction of green and clean energy ship orders in hand.