Dynacom Returns to Hengli With Eight More Ships Worth Close to $1bn
Very large ammonia carriers and VLCCs take the owner's book at the yard beyond fifty vessels
Dynacom Tankers Management has returned to Hengli Heavy Industries with another eight newbuildings in a package worth close to $1bn, extending one of the largest single owner-yard programmes in shipping.
Hengli has confirmed contracts covering eight vessels spanning VLCCs and 93,000 cbm very large ammonia carriers. The yard has not published a breakdown of the order; market indications put the split at six ammonia carriers and two crude tankers.
The contracts take the number of ships the Greek owner has booked at Hengli past fifty, across VLCCs, very large ammonia carriers, suezmax tankers and kamsarmax bulk carriers. On the crude side alone the running total reaches twenty VLCCs contracted at the yard, one of the largest single-owner VLCC projects anywhere in the shipbuilding market.
The ammonia carriers are the newer strand of that programme. Dynacom booked its first two 93,000 cbm units at Hengli in July for delivery in 2028, with market indications at the time putting them at around $115m each. Six more at the same size would place the owner among the larger holders of very large ammonia carrier tonnage on order, in a segment where the carrying trade and the bunkering chain that would supply it are being built at the same time.
George Procopiou, who controls Dynacom, has concentrated the group's ordering at a single Chinese yard rather than spreading it across builders, which gives both sides a series long enough to repeat a design rather than draw a new one for every pair of hulls.
The orders land in a tanker market that has repriced sharply. The rate for a VLCC loading in the Gulf of Oman for China reached about Worldscale 450 this week, roughly $11.50 a barrel and a record for the assessment, with VLCC rates on the West Africa to Asia route also at record levels.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 15 September 2026.
