NORDEN has recently placed a newbuilding order for six dry cargo vessels from Dalian COSCO KHI Ship Engineering , a joint venture between COSCO Shipping and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, for delivery in the next two to three years. All six orders are for Supramax vessels with a capacity of 64,000 deadweight tonnes.

Head of Asset Management, Henrik Lykkegaard Madsen, outlines how the order reflects NORDEN’s asset trading business approach:

“Placing this newbuilding order is an integrated part of our asset trading strategy, whereby we can add dry cargo capacity with future delivery, which we think will be interesting both from a freight and asset value perspective. This is also supported by the current low orderbook which will see very few deliveries between now and the delivery of these vessels”, says Henrik Lykkegaard Madsen.

The newbuildings will join the portfolio of NORDEN owned and leased dry cargo and product tankers managed by the Assets & Logistics business unit.

Having made sizeable reductions in the owned dry cargo fleet during 2022, NORDEN only owned around 6 dry cargo vessels at the end of the first quarter of this year. During 2023, NORDEN has gradually added more exposure towards the dry cargo market, effective from 2024 onwards.

Since 2020, the Assets & Logistics business unit has conducted more than 135 asset trades, as part of continuously adapting NORDEN’s overall exposure in dry cargo and product tankers and making use of short-term market opportunities for asset trading.

The vessel types are among the most fuel-efficient ship designs in the market, which can use both traditional marine oil and biofuel, notes Henrik Lykkegaard Madsen. NORDEN considers biofuel a key transition fuel on our journey to reduce emissions and offer greener shipping solutions to our customers.