Shanghai's Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding has signed orders to build four liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers worth about $1 billion from joint ventures of Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), its first major LNG export orders, a newspaper reported on Monday.
Ship brokers said the ships, which can carry 172,000 cubic metres of LNG each, were expected to cost about $200-250 million apiece, the South China Morning Post reported
Hudong-Zhonghua is controlled by China State Shipbuilding Corp, one of the two largest shipbuilding conglomerates in the country.
Two of the ships will be operated by MOL and East China LNG Shipping Investment, while the other two will be operated by MOL and North China LNG Shipping Investment, it said.
North China LNG Shipping and East China LNG Shipping are joint ventures established by China Shipping Group with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and Sinopec Group respectively.
