Philadelphia yard may build an additional 13 tankers

Philadelphia yard may build an additional 13 tankers Ship-owning company Aker American Shipping ASA — which announced earlier this week that it will spin off its shipyard company into a separate publicly traded company — now says it may add up to another 13 product tankers to a dozen it is already having built.
   Aker American said it has entered into an option agreement with Aker Philadelphia Shipyard ASA to purchase up to 13 more of the 46,000-deadweight-ton product tankers at a total contract value of $1.3 billion.
   Aker American has 10 product tankers and two shuttle tankers on order from the shipyard subsidiary. It will own the ships, but Overseas Shipholding Group has agreed to charter all 12. Three have been delivered to OSG; another four are under construction.
   Under the agreement, Aker would be able to order another 13 vessels, for delivery from July 2011 to July 2015.
   Aker noted that the product tankers could be easily modified into shuttle tankers or chemical carriers.
   Each vessel has an agreed-to price of $100 million. However, under the agreement, the final contract value will be adjusted to reflect inflation and cover escalation for materials, equipment and services cost increases from 2011.