China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES) has announced it has officially inked shipbuilding contracts for the construction of ten 400,000dwt VLOCs with three domestic yards.

Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and Beihai Shipbuilding Industry will each build four VLOCs for CMES, and the remaining two vessels will be constructed by China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu).

Total value of the vessels is approximately US$850m, and deliveries are scheduled between the first half of 2018 and the end of 2019.

CMES signed a contract of affreightment (COA) with Vale this week to transport iron from Brazil to China over a period of up to 27 years.