Canada’s Algoma Central Corporation has ordered four new dry bulk lake freighters from Nantong Mingde Heavy Industries, a shipyard located in the Yangtze Delta area of China. The contract includes options for two additional vessels.
Algoma Central expects to invest $205 million in the project.
The ships will be maximum St. Lawrence Seaway size. One will be a gearless bulk freighter and three will be self-unloading bulk freighters. The first is expected to enter service in 2013 with the remaining ships to follow through mid-2014.
The vessels will be chartered to Seaway Marine Transport, which will deploy them in its dry bulk trade on the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Waterway. These new vessels will replace existing ones that are approaching the end of their economic lives.
Seaway Marine Transport, a partnership with Upper Lakes Group, Inc., is the largest operator of dry-bulk vessels on the waterway.
December 21, 2010
