d’Amico International Orders Pair of “ECO Design” MR Product Tankers

Image courtesy D’Amico Shipping

d’Amico International Shipping S.A. (Borsa Italiana: DIS), has announced that its subsidiary d’Amico Tankers Ltd has signed a $66 million contract with South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo Dockyard (HMD) for the construction of two, 50,000 DWT product/chemical tankers.

These two newbuildings will be to the latest, highly efficient IMO II Medium Range (MR) design. The HMD design concept of hull shape and propulsion efficiency is expected to lead to an average fuel savings of 6 -7 T/day as compared to the average consumption of the world’s existing MR fleet. The vessels will have an attained Energy Design Index (EEDI) falling well within the IMO phase-in 3 requirement due for vessels to be built after Jan 1st 2025, being of 31,5% lower than the current IMO reference line.

Marco Fiori, Chief Executive Officer of d’Amico International Shipping S.A. commented:

After the recent order of two ECO 40 SHALLOWMAX Newbuilding Handy vessels, we are happy to announce this further deal for two additional MR Vessels, which clearly reaffirms DIS strategy to modernizing its fleet through new buildings with eco innovative design. We strongly believe these types of vessels are set to be the future of our industry and their estimated timing of delivery perfectly matches our positive market outlook on the medium/long term.

Upon delivery, these two ships will be the most advanced and efficient in terms of speed & consumption and deadweight & draft ratios among their size. These technical improvements will permit to improve current t/c equivalent rate revenue by an amount of at least USD $3,000 per day.

DIS intends to continue to expand its fleet through accretive acquisitions with the goal to continue to manage our capital structure and chartering mix in an effort to provide our investors with the optimal risk, return balance.

Expected delivery of these ships is in early 2014.

Financing

To fully support this new investment project, d’Amico International S.A. granted a subordinated loan of USD $20 million expiring on December 31st, 2013. The loan is based on terms and conditions in line with current financial market conditions for similar transactions and will be used for general corporate purposes, future potentials vessels purchases and new building orders.

As of today the fleet controlled by d’Amico Tankers includes a total of 40 double-hull Medium Range and Handysize product tankers, with an average age of about 6.2 years.

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