Oil tankers delivered in Dalian
By Zhu Chengpei (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-16 10:19

The construction of five large oil tankers for Iran by Chinese firm has been completed in Dalian. The event was marked by an Iranian ship owner's representative signing the turn-over contract on Monday night in the port city in Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

"The tankers built in Dalian are among the best of their type in the world," said Paviz Sangin, project manager for the National Iranian Tankers Company (NITC).

Dalian New Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co Ltd (DNS) won the US$370 million contract with NITC in 1999 to build five of the 300,000 DWT (dead-weight tons) crude oil carriers. The deal made China the third country in the world to possess the shipbuilding capacity for the tankers, after Japan and the Republic of Korea.

A breakthrough in China's shipbuilding history, the construction of the first large tanker attracted much attention at home and abroad.

China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation required its member DNS to guarantee the first tanker would be delivered on time, and that all five ordered were of the highest quality.

After 15 months of construction, the first 330-metre-long and 58-metre-wide Iran Delvar tanker was handed to NITC in November, 2001.

It was highly valued by the ship owner, and well-known ship classification societies such as Norway-based Det Norske Veritas.

At the delivery ceremony for the first tanker in 2001, Mohammad Souri, then Iranian deputy oil minister and chairman and managing director of NITC, said: "From the very day we signed the contract, many people thought we made the wrong decision because China was not in the business of building such big tankers."

Souri attributed the achievement to quality and co-operation working together to the customers' satisfaction.

The experience DNS gained from the first large tanker helped in the construction of the others.

The construction period of the fifth tanker was 263 days shorter than the first tanker.

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