Russia's Sovcomflot has cancelled orders for two aframax crude oil tankers at a domestic shipyard.
The vessels were part of a series of 6+6 vessels ordered in 2010 in a joint venture between Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering of South Korea and United Shipbuilding Corp (USC) of Russia.
Sovcomflot president Sergey Frank confirms the contracts have been cancelled as the joint venture was unable to complete the ships as agreed.
He says the owner is in talks with the yard to build medium-range (MR) tankers instead.
Four of the tankers from the original order — two aframaxes and two long-range-two (LR2) tankers — are being built at Daewoo.
The plan was that part of the hull construction of the third and fourth tankers would be built at a new USC yard in Russia’s Far East, while the fifth and sixth ship would be built in Russia.