News from Gram Car Carriers

Latest Newbuilding Viking Sea

Latest newbuilding Viking Sea in calm weather.

Delivery of last NB from Mingde

On the 2nd of November 2012 the last vessel in the series of six new buildings from Nantong Mingde was delivered. The vessel is named "Viking Sea" and markes the end to the project started back in 2006. The vessel will be on charter to MOL and has a length of 158m, breadth of 28m and a cargo carrying capacity of 35,033m2. She is registered under the Singapore Flag and is being managed by OSM Ship Management from their Singapore office.

Delivery of Viking Ocean

On the 10th September 2012 the second to last newbuilding from Mingde Heavy Industry was delivered to the Owners GCC. "Viking Ocean" has a length of 158m, breadth of28m and she has cargo carrying capacity of 35,033m2. She is registered under the Singapore Flag and is being managed by OSM Ship Management from their Singapore office.

Double naming ceremony! On 10th August, the Naming Ceremony for the two last 4,300 units PCTCs built for GCC by Mingde Shipyard was held in Nantong city, China. On the ceremony of the two vessels, God Mothers, Mrs. Shishido from Japan and Ms. Agnes Blystad from Norway, named them “VIKING OCEAN” and “VIKING SEA” respectively.

Delivery of Viking Emerald

We are pleased to announce the delivery of the 4th car carrier being built at Mingde Heavy Industries in Nantong, China. The naming ceremony was held on the 10th of May 2012 on the outfitting quay at Mingde shipyard, and the delivery documents was signed the following day. Viking Emerald went directly into time charter deal with "K"-Line.

On the 5th of March 2012 the erection of PCTC # 6 was started by placing the first block into the drydock. This will be the 6th and last of the firm new buildings GCC has ordered from Mingde Shipyard. The vessel will now be built up in the dock in parallel with vessel #5.

Erection started in the drydock on 28th of September 2011, and the “mega blocks” have rapidly been placed in position to create the next new-building for Gram Car Carriers. This will be the fourth vessel in a series of 6 sister ships built at Mingde Heavy Industry in Nantong, China. Yard No. 86 was launched on the 9th January 2012 and is now followed by outfitting at the Yard' berth towards delivery in end of May 2012.

Viking Diamond successfully delivered

Viking Diamond was successfully delivered to Gram Car Carriers II Pte Ltd at 1030 Singapore time on the 12th August 2011 and at the same time she was delivered on time-charter to charterer K-Line. Her first loading port will be Mesan in South Korea, followed by Kunsan and a few ports in Japan, before she is heading for the US west coast.

On the morning of June 29th 2011, the naming ceremony of 4300 units PCTC-04 was held on the third outfitting quay at Mingde shipyard in Nantong, China. The ceremony was hosted by Mr. Zhu Hongbing, General Manager of Mingde shipyard. Mr. Ji Fenghua, Board Chairman of Mingde Group and Mr. Arne Blystad, Shareholder and board member of Gram Car Carriers AS gave the speech separately. They all celebrated the naming of this vessel and thanked for the endeavor contributed by the friends of all circles, site team and workers of shipyard. There were almost 100 attendees taking part in the ceremony including owner, trading house, class, banks and guests from all over the world and the related persons from the shipyard.

We are pleased to announce that yet another lady has joined our car carrier fleet! This new lady is named "Eishun" and she is a 1999 Japanese built lady with 3,500 car capacity and 80 tons ramp. She was taken over at 13:40 hrs Singapore time Tuesday 31st May and at that time she was at Port Kelang, Malaysia. We welcome this good vessel and trust she will be a good addition to our increasing fleet of pure car and truck carriers. Including this latest arrival, GCC AS holds a fleet of total 19 PCTC (15 existing and 4 new-buildings).

The business is catching up

The 21st of March was a day to remember for Gram Car Carriers. For the first time, we had two of our vessels calling the same port at the same time. Viking Constanza, a Japanese built vessel delivered in 2010 arrived the port of Vigo - Spain at 0650hrs and shortly thereafter Viking Drive fastened its lines alongside. Both vessels left in the late afternoon after loading some 1463 units on Viking Constanza and 1085 units on Viking Drive.

Viking Coral successfully delivered