South Korea’s cash-strapped Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) secured a new order worth $250 million to build three crude carriers, while the country’s financial authorities and state lenders have been trying to put together another multibillion-dollar bailout package through the help of private lenders since two weeks ago.

DSME announced on Tuesday that it signed a contract to construct three 318,000-ton very large crude-oil carriers (VLCCs) with Maran Tankers Management Inc., a subsidiary of Greek shipping giant Angelicoussis Shipping Group.

The ships each 336 meters long and 60 meters wide are the next-generation environmentally-friendly vessels that are in compliance with the International Maritime Organization (IMO)’s environmental regulations. The delivery is scheduled to be completed by next year.

Angelicoussis Shipping has once again come to the rescue of the battered shipbuilder. The Greek shipping group provided a much-needed breakthrough to the shipbuilder in June last year as well by placing orders worth $587 million to build two liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers and two VLCCs. Amid dearth of orders from lengthy slowdown in global demand in December last year, the group also granted an order to construct a LNG floating storage and regasification unit (LNG-FRSU).

“Angelicoussis Shipping Group has been showing unlimited trust for us,” said Jung Sung-leep, DSME’s chief executive officer. “All employees have pledged to make painstaking efforts to get back on our feet in return for support from people of the country, the government, creditors and ship owners,” he added.

Jung offered not to receive his monthly paycheck in pleading for employees’ cost-cutting efforts to win creditors’ confidence and life-line through a package of debt relief and new funding of near $6 billion. Authorities warned that the shipbuilder could face court-led reorganization if its private creditors and bondholders do not agree to their part in debt-to-equity swap and other rescue measures.

The shipbuilder has won orders worth a total of $770 million this year including two LNG carriers and five VLCCs.

By Moon Ji-woong

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