While Hyundai Heavy Industries having been unofficially nominated to build one 84,000-cbm very large LPG carrier (VLGC) by KSS Line, the Korean shipping company is in talks with domestic LPG importer E1 for 10-year charter.
According to KSS' regulatory filing announced on August 1, the newbuilding is slated for delivery in January 2014 and is said to be costing $73.5m.
KSS is to sign the contract on September 10. The company official said, "The newbuilding will be chartered out to domestic shipper and we plan to make additional announcement when firm contracts are finalized."
Meanwhile, E1 had put out a tender to charter a VLGC as a deal it had with Japan’s Sanko Steamship collapsed when the latter went into insolvency.