CNSS独家专栏：浅谈日益壮大的Valemax型船队（A glimpse on the continuous growing Valemax fleet）

There are currently 17 Valemax carriers in service under 3 different flag state authorities, where Singapore takes the majority with 10 vessels followed by Marshall Islands with 6 in hand. Panama has only won 1 vessel, the Vale Sohar flying its flag, and is likely to lose her to Marshall Islands by the end of this year. 4 of the most reputable ship manager companies, Anglo Eastern Ship Management, Schulte Ship Management, STX Pan Ocean Shipping and Oman Shipping, are taking good care of these mega ships. Anglo Eastern Ship Management and Schulte Ship Management run all the Singapore flag vessels directly owned by the Brazil mining giant Vale SA. STX Pan Ocean and Oman Shipping manages their own Valemax vessels respectively but both chartered them back to Vale.

目前世界范围内在运营的Valemax型矿砂船共有17条，分属于3个不同的船旗。新加坡占有大多数份额的10条船舶，紧接着是马绍尔的6条。巴拿马只得到了一条Vale Sohar号，但是该船很有可能在今年年底前也转到马绍尔船旗。全球顶尖的4家管理公司负责这些巨型船舶的运营管理工作，他们是Anglo Eastern Ship Management, Schulte Ship Management, STX Pan Ocean Shipping 和Oman Shipping。Anglo Eastern Ship Management和Schulte Ship Management负责巴西矿业巨头Vale公司直接拥有的所有新加坡旗的该型船舶。STX Pan Ocean和Oman Shipping各自管理自家的Valemax船舶，但是均是将它们长期租给Vale。

Valued roughly 110 million to 130 million each, the 400,000 dwt Valemax shipbuilding orders were quite a shock to the industry when first placed in August 2008 with China’s Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industry and in October 2009 with Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. Back then, the 1.6 billion 12 Valemax order package awarded to Rongsheng was world's biggest single shipbuilding contract by deadweight tonnage, and also a milestone to China’s domestic shipping finance industry as for the first time Export and Import Bank of China and Bank of China provided a 13 year maturity mortgage covering 80% Vale’s cost.

单船造价约在1.1亿到1.3亿之间的400,000载重吨Valemax型船舶订单在当年下单时震惊了整个航运圈。Vale分别于2008年8月和2009年10月与中国的江苏熔盛重工和韩国的大宇造船海洋工程订立了造船合同。那时，总值16亿美元的12条在熔盛重工的Valemax造船订单被视为按载重吨记，全球最大的单一造船订单。同时该订单对中国本国的航运金融界具有里程碑式的意义，其中中国进出口银行和中国银行联合为淡水河谷提供了总金额高达合同总价80%的13年期贷款。

Oman shipping joined the game in late 2008 by ordering 4 vessels at Rongsheng as well, in a bid to benefit from transporting iron ore from Brazil to Oman after deliveries. STX Group had their both shipbuilding and shipping arms on board Valemax project in 2009, an exclusive 25 year long term contract was signed between STX and Vale which honored 8 vessel orders to STX’s Jinhae and Dalian facilities and charter parties to STX Pan Ocean. But their first vessel, STX Beijing unfortunately suffered a severe incident in Brazil of structural damage in December 2009. Concerns and questions on the safety of this type of VLOC were widely brought up, and further clouded its fate of calling Chinese ports.

Oman航运于2008年底参与到该项目中，与熔盛重工签订了4条船舶的合同，以期望在交船后将其都投入到巴西到阿曼的铁矿石运输线路中获利。STX集团也在2009年让旗下的造船和海运公司加入到了Valemax的项目中。他们与淡水河谷签订了长达25年的租船合同，并将建造8条改型船舶的任务交给了STX Jnhae和STX Dalian两处船厂。但不幸的是，STX的首条Valemax船舶，Vale Beijing号在2009年12月于巴西由于事故船体严重受损。自此，业内对Valemax型VLOC船舶的安全性表示了广泛的担忧和质疑，这无疑更给其能否顺利靠泊中国港口的命运雪上加霜。

But on the other hand China today, as being the world’s no. 2 economy, has to open doors to more competition to achieve a sustainable rapid growth. That means you are the biggest importer of Brazil ores, you should give your counterpart more transparence and equity, don’t let protecting the state owned shipping companies affect too much of your judgment. I think there will be more talks and negotiations than ever when Xi and Li are actually in power next year.

但是从另一方面将，今天的中国作为世界第二大经济体，如果想要保持可持续的稳定快速发展的话，就必须要接受更多的竞争。也就是说，既然中国作为世界第一大的巴西铁矿石进口国，你应该给你的贸易伙伴更高的透明度和更多的公平环境，不要因为保护国有航运企业而过多的影响到当局政策的制定。我认为在明年习主席和李总理正式当权后，中巴两国会就此问题展开更多的讨论和谈判。

And we shall also see if Vale could live up to his words of building 100 Valemax vessels to accomplish its majestic global distribution network.

此外，我们也要关注淡水河谷是否能实现它的诺言，建造多达100条的Valemax船队，来完成其宏大的铁矿石全球销售运输网络。（By Paris Zhang）

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