Foremost injects youth into fleet with NYK-chartered newbuilds after string of sales
By Eric Priante Martin
TradeWinds
May 2, 2024
Foremost Group has brought the average age of its on-the-water fleet to below five years after taking delivery of a pair of biofuel-upgraded newbuildings and selling off five ships earlier in the year.
Before the capesize sales and the delivery of the 182,000-dwt Bo May and Heng May from Namura Shipbuilding, Foremost’s fleet at the end of 2023 had an age of about 6.2 years, according to a TradeWinds analysis of data from VesselsValue.
Both the newbuilding order and the string of sales were agreed while late chief executive Angela Chao was at the helm, before she died in February in a car accident.
The capesize newbuildings have hit the water and commenced work for charter NYK Group.
New York-headquartered Foremost said the newly delivered bulkers are packed with efficiency features and were upgraded for continuous operation on biofuels.
This allows easy switching between biofuels and conventional fuels as it operates in different trading regions.
Chairman James Chao, who founded the company and returned to the chief executive chair after his daughter’s death, couched the newbuilding delivery as a reflection of the Foremost’s long history of building ships in Japan and of environmental stewardship.
He said the ships’ modifications for biofuels contribute to the ESG strategies — as environmental, social and governance efforts are known — of long-term customer NYK.
“At Foremost, we believe in building long-term mutually beneficial relationships,” he said in a statement provided to TradeWinds.
“And, we always believe that we are performing a valuable service for the world — to facilitate the movement of cargoes to fuel economic growth worldwide and improve the standard of living around the world.”
Foremost described the newbuildings as among the first to comply with phase 3 standards of the International Maritime Organization’s Energy Efficiency Design Index and are built to have favourable Carbon Intensity Indicator scores.
Fuel efficiency features include hull optimisation, electronically-controlled engines built by MAN Energy Solutions, propeller optimisation, a rudder fin and bulb, energy-saving paint and flow-straightening fins.
Hiroaki Bishiyama, a managing executive officer at NYK who is also chief executive of the Japanese shipping giant’s dry bulk division, spoke of the newest capesize newbuildings in its fleet as part of the company’s goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030.
“In order to achieve the goal, those two cutting-edge vessels with the latest environmentally friendly technologies will play a very important role in our fleet,” he said in a statement.
“We are confident that this contract with Foremost Group will give us great strength in the future direction and development of NYK’s dry bulk business.”
Foremost said it has a two-prong strategy for decarbonisation. For existing ships, it is focused on onboard hardware or software upgrades, as well as continuous improvements in operations and management.
In its newbuilding programme, it is focused now on ordering dual-fuel vessels that can run on methanol and are ready for future installation of carbon capture technology.
As TradeWinds reported in February, Foremost embarked on a string of sales of newcastlemax and traditional capesizes that represented five of the company’s six oldest ships.
According to VesselsValue data, the sale of the quintet to Danaos Corp, Winning Shipping and Peter Dohle Schiffharts brought in $146m in gross proceeds.
The data shows four of those ships are yet to be delivered to their new owners, but when ships are excluded from the Foremost fleet, its average vessel age comes down to 4.95 years.
Foremost has long targeted an age below five years, leading to a regular replacement cycle.
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