New $784m Shulanghu deepwater ore hub project will be ready to receive Valemaxes by year’s end but has already sparked criticism

Another Chinese port with state-owned backers is putting its money on the controversial 400,000-dwt ore carriers that remain banned from the country.

Zhoushan Port Corp has revealed its plans for a huge transhipment hub now under construction on new land in the East China Sea at Shulanghu Island, which would receive iron ore carriers of up to 400,000 dwt for loading onto smaller ships of up to 100,000 dwt. Port authority companies have already been at work on the project in the archipelagic county of Zhoushan for four years and it is nearing completion.

Despite the nationwide Valemax ban, backers of the Shulanghu project are telling potential investors that regional and national economic needs demand building for the big ships.

Current deepwater port capacity in the Yangtze Delta has been “saturated” for several years now and can no longer respond to the “unbroken” growth in demand for ore in the Yangtze Delta’s hinterland. Rival deepwater projects at Qingdao and Rizhao and other points on the Chinese coast are too far off to make economic sense as bases for transhipment up the Yangtze River, it is argued.

The Shulanghu ore transhipment hub’s first Valemax-capable discharge and handy-to-post-panamax loading berths are set for trial operations by the end of this year, and a second VLOC berth will be ready during 2015.

The port’s capacity plans are hedged in language that leaves wriggle room as to whether the big berths are for 300,000-dwt or 400,000-dwt ships. One port agent consulted by TradeWinds explained the ambiguous Chinese phrasing of the document as a common way of saying the wharves are actually built to the larger capacity but that only the smaller capacity will be officially claimed until a need arises to accommodate larger tonnage.