S.Korea STX Offshore wins $340 mln tanker orders

STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co., owner of Europe's largest shipyard, received a 212.8 billion won ($169 million) order to build four tankers for a European company, its first commercial vessel contract this year. The Jinhae, South Korea-based shipyard also won an optional contract to build four additional 50,400 deadweight-ton tankers for the ship owner at the same price, the company said today in an e-mailed statement, without identifying the buyer.
The contract and the option may signal the start of a revival in the market for new vessels, which froze last year as the credit crunch dried up funds for ship owners and the global recession hammered trade and commodity prices.
"We may not be able to say the shipbuilding industry is returning to a boom, but clearly, we can take this as a sign that it has hit the bottom," said Lee Sokje, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities Co.
STX Offshore rose 3.1 percent to close at 18,450 won in Seoul, while the Kospi index dropped as much as 1.1 percent. The stock gained 48 percent this year.
The South Korean shipbuilder has an order backlog for 278 vessels worth $18.3 billion, including orders for the company's Chinese yard, the statement said. The last new vessel order was booked last November, it said.