CMES, Vale Shake Hands on Iron Ore Transport Deal

CMES China Merchants Energy Shippings (CMES) subsidiary, Hong Kong Ming Wah Shipping, has signed a deal to transport iron ore for the Brazilian mining company Vale for a period of up to 27 years. The contract was signed by President of CMES, Xie Chunlin, and Vales Executive Manager for Shipping and Marketing Iron Ore, Luiz Meriz, in Beijing on March 21. The deal is the implementation of a strategic cooperation agreement on seaborne cargo transportation and integrated logistics which the two companies entered in September 2014. CMES and Vale signed the agreement under which the mining giant said it would sell four 400,000 dwt very large ore carriers (VLOCs) to CMES. The iron ore transport contract comes on the back of Vales previous 27-year deal signed with China COSCO Shipping Corporation (COSCOCS) just last week, under which COSCOCS will transport about 16 million tons of iron ore per year for Vale. World Maritime News Staff