China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES) said on September 30 that its wholly owned subsidiary Hong Kong Ming Wah Shipping had signed a 25-year transportation agreement covering six very large ore carriers (VLOC) for Guinea’s Simandou iron-ore project.
The agreement with an unnamed iron-ore trading company has an estimated total value of at least $2.8 billion. CMES said the counterparty’s identity was being withheld under the parties’ agreement and listed-company disclosure rules.
CMES said it did not expect a material effect on current-year profit, subject to audit, and expected the impact on the company’s financial standing and business performance in any single year to be limited.
CMES’s July proposal envisaged a contract of affreightment with freight based on a Baltic Exchange route-rate index and adjusted through a cost mechanism.
Simandou’s export infrastructure includes more than 600 kilometres of railway, alongside barge facilities and ports for transshipment vessels. Project partners said the system could support combined exports of up to 120 million tonnes annually after commissioning and ramp-up.
The first Simandou cargo arrived in China in January after a 46-day voyage. The vessel carried nearly 200,000 tonnes to Majishan port.
CMES separately announced plans to build six 343,000 DWT VLOCs in July, with deliveries scheduled for 2029–30.
