Samsung Heavy Industries revealed that a huge newbuilding contract has been cancelled as of March 18 2013, it said in its regulatory filing on March 19.
Now of overall eight ultra-large containerships awarded by Mideastern owner in October 2007, five newbuildings worth KRW 948.1bn ($853m) in total have been chopped off.
Since the contract took effect, the shipowner extended the deal as it could not secure ship financing amid global financial crisis. Recently, the cash stringent owner requested to cancel five vessels out of eight and the Korean shipbuilder agreed to terminate the deal for five newbuildings.
Also, according to the contract, Samsung will take all of $55m, already paid for those five boxships.
Meanwhile, regarding the rest three vessels totalling KRW 568.9bn, they have extended the due date by up to July 31 2016.