China recently made its first delivery of a domestically built Cape-size bulk cargo vessel to a customer in Europe, heralding the nation's consolidated presence on the world market for huge bulk cargo ships.

Dubbed "Shanghai Treasure", the vessel delivered, with so far the largest dead weight tonnage for Cape-size bulk cargo ships, was one of the four vessels ordered by the Belgian Bocimar International N.V.

With a length of 289 meters, a designed draught of 16.5 meters and a speed of 15 sea miles per hour, the 175,000-dwt Cape-size ship was built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. in Shanghai.

The Cape-size vessel was a new development in China's shipbuilding industry and has been included in the list of the state localization and innovation projects for major equipment. Such vessels have aroused interest in Belgium, Japan and the United States and received 28 orders.

Regarded as environmentally friendly, the vessel has a double-layer fuel tank arrangement to prevent oil leakage in marine accidents. Meanwhile, it has part of its structure improved to limit its own weight, thus having increased the dead-weight capacity to 175,000 tons and becoming so far the largest bulk cargo vessel that is able to be accommodated by Dunkerque Port of France.

Founded in 1999, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. is one of the five shipbuilding bases under the China Ship Industry Group Co. and the largest modernized one in China.

The Belgian Bocimar International N.V. is a shipping mogul that boasts the capacity of influencing the world market for 170,000-dwt vessels.
 
(Xinhua News Agency May 24, 2004)