News

Algoma Central Corporation announced on September 10 that it has signed contracts with Uljanik d.d. to build three 740 foot Seaway Max, Equinox Class self-unloading bulk freighters to join the Company’s Great Lakes-St. Lawrence waterway dry-bulk fleet. This is in addition to the two Equinox 650 ships ordered from Uljanik d.d also this year. These five ships are the largest Croatian export to Canada to date.

On Nov 20, representatives of Algoma came to Croatia. Together with Ambassador Maksymiuk, they paid a visit to the Uljanik shipyard and met in Zagreb with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. “Our experience with the Uljanik Group on the Equinox 650 has given us confidence in the Shipyard’s ability to deliver high quality vessels on the agreed timelines”, said Ken Bloch Soerensen, President and CEO of Algoma. The company representatives stressed that these contracted ships are just the beginning of building mutual trust, and that they would like to work together in the future to develop the construction of the most modern ships, in line with the top trends in the shipbuilding industry.

The new Equinox Class ships will feature a boom forward configuration designed to provide greater flexibility in certain delivery situations. The vessels will have an overall length of 225.55 metres (740 feet) and a beam of 23.77 metres (78 feet), qualifying as Seaway Max size ships. The vessels will carry 29,300 tonnes at maximum Seaway draft. The new Equinox vessels will have all of the features of the existing Equinox design. The first vessel is scheduled for delivery in early 2018 with the balance of the ships delivered by the end of that year.

Based in St. Catharines, Ontario, Algoma operates the largest Canadian-flag fleet of dry and liquid bulk carriers trading on the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence system, including 18 self-unloading dry bulk carriers, seven gearless dry bulk vessels, and seven product tankers.