NORDEN Orders Six Supramax Bulkers

Danish shipowner NORDEN has recently placed a newbuilding order for six dry cargo vessels from Dalian COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co., Ltd. (DACKS), a joint venture between COSCO Shipping and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, for delivery in the next two to three years. All six orders are for Supramax vessels with a capacity of 64,000 deadweight tonnes.

NORDEN's Head of Asset Management, Henrik Lykkegaard Madsen, said, “Placing this newbuilding order is an integrated part of our asset trading strategy, whereby we can add dry cargo capacity with future delivery, which we think will be interesting both from a freight and asset value perspective. This is also supported by the current low orderbook which will see very few deliveries between now and the delivery of these vessels.”

The newbuilds will join the portfolio of NORDEN owned and leased dry cargo and product tankers managed by the Assets & Logistics business unit.

Having made sizeable reductions in the owned dry cargo fleet during 2022, NORDEN only owned six dry cargo vessels at the end of the first quarter of this year. During 2023, NORDEN has gradually added more exposure toward the dry cargo market, effective from 2024 onwards.

Since 2020, the Assets & Logistics business unit has conducted more than 135 asset trades, as part of continuously adapting NORDEN’s overall exposure in dry cargo and product tankers and making use of short-term market opportunities for asset trading, the company said.

The new vessels will be fuel-efficient, capable of operating on both traditional marine oil and biofuel, said Henrik Lykkegaard Madsen. NORDEN has said it considers biofuel a key transition fuel on our journey to reduce emissions and offer greener shipping solutions to our customers.