China’s COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers has ordered four 9，000-tonne special liquid cargo ships at Mawei Shipyard，a subsidiary of Fujian Shipbuilding.

These four vessels were ordered through its Hong Kong-based wholly-owned subsidiary COSCO Shipping Investment Development and will be used for asphalt transport.

The total investment is around $98m while the price of a single ship is about $24.5m. The vessels will be delivered between October 2025 and August 2026. The company stated that the internal rate of return of this project is approximately 7.2% and the investment payback period is 11.8 years.

According to COSCO， asphalt carriers built before 2005 have been driven out of the core market due to global green and low-carbon requirements and there are only 21 vessels in the 7，000-9，000 tonne range that are under 10 years old – or around 7%.

The Chinese company added that it would also be creating a 7，500，9，000，and 13，000-tonne capacity asphalt fleet which，it hopes，will provide future market competitiveness.