China’s Chengxi Shipyard has won an order to build two liquefied natural gas-powered 50,000-dwt product tankers.
CSSC Shipping, the leasing arm of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, is behind the order. Chengxi is also a unit of CSSC.
The dual-fuel vessels have a price tag of $43 million, each.
Several shipbroking reports reveal that the tankers would be chartered by the agricultural commodity trader Louis Dreyfus.
The bareboat charter would last for five years.
We reached out to Louis Dreyfus for a comment. The company declined to comment.
The Rotterdam-based trader has a fleet of around 200 chartered vessels across the globe and these would be the first LNG-powered ships in its fleet.
Louis Dreyfus previously said it was studying carbon-reducing technologies and designs to comply with stricter shipping emission regulations.
The studied options included LNG dual-fuel, wind propulsion, as well as biofuels.