Taiwan's U-Ming Marine Transport has doubled the amount of capesize bulkers it has on order at a Chinese yard.
Company president CK Ong said that the Taiwanese owner has upped its order for two 206,000-dwt vessels at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS) to four.
The initial pair were said to have cost $60.5m apiece when inked last summer.
U-Ming now has 23 ships in the water and four on order, two of 82,000 dwt and two of 57,000 dwt.
The post-panamax and supramax vessels are under construction at Guangzhou Longxue Shipyard and Cosco Zhoushan Shipyard, respectively.
Ong said, “This was just our first wave of orders and the price has not really come down much since then for the first-tier yards.
“But we believe going forward — maybe toward the end of this year or next year — there should be another window of opportunity for us to implement our second wave of orders. Yards need to build up their orderbooks by 2012.”