Lepta Shipping, a shipping joint venture established by Japanese shipowners Nissen Kaiun and Mitsui & Co., has returned to Chinese shipyard to order new vessels and continues to increase its order book for newbuildings.
According to TradeWinds, Lepta Shipping has returned to Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group to place an order for two 82,500 DWT Kamsarmax bulk carriers, which will be built by Yangzi-Mitsui Shipbuilding and are expected to be delivered in 2028. The new vessels will be equipped with conventional fuel engines and desulfurization devices, complying with the International Maritime Organization’s NOx Tier III standards and EEDI Phase III requirements.
Sources said the shipbuilding contract between Lepta Shipping and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding was signed earlier this year, but the relevant information was not disclosed until recently.
As an old customer of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group, the two parties have previously cooperated to build a series of 82,000 DWT, 180,000 DWT bulk carriers and 66,000 DWT bulk carriers.
According to Clarkson data, including the latest orders, Lepta Shipping has placed orders for 19 Kamsarmax bulk carriers with Yangzijiang Shipbuilding. In addition to the aforementioned two vessels, the recent orders include 10+2 Kamsarmax bulk carriers with a deadweight tonnage of 82,500 tons in 2023, with deliveries expected to begin in the first quarter of 2026; and two Kamsarmax bulk carriers in 2024, scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2026.
In addition to bulk carriers, Lepta Shipping has collaborated with Yangzi Mitsui Shipbuilding to build 10 3,500 TEU series container ships. The order was signed in 2020 with a total value of approximately US$396 million. All of them were delivered in 2024 and will be put into operation in the fleet of Maersk, the world’s top shipping giant.
According to reports, Yangzi Mitsui Shipbuilding was established in May 2019 and officially commenced operations in October of the same year. The facility spans approximately 1 million square meters and features one each of 200,000-ton, 100,000-ton, and 80,000-ton flat-bottom slipways. It also boasts a 1,500-meter outfitting wharf, 300,000 square meters of production facilities, and is equipped with advanced shipbuilding facilities such as 1,000-ton and 600-ton gantry cranes, with an annual production capacity of 1.5 to 2 million deadweight tons.
According to the plan of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group, in the future, Yangtze Mitsui Shipbuilding will focus on oil tankers, liquid cargo vessels such as chemicals, and high-tech and high-value-added clean energy vessels such as LNG, LEG, and LPG, with the goal of becoming a production base for “large green clean energy vessels”.