The double-hulled, Hong Kong-flagged tanker CSC Amethyst represented one of China's largest shipping conglomerates here for the first time when it berthed at Dunedin last week.
Since its inception in 1997, the China Shipping (Group) Company, with headquarters at Shanghai, has been under the direct administration of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
One of its major companies, the China Shipping Container Line operates a fleet of owned and chartered container ships.
Another that was formed only in 2006 is CSC Oil Transportation, which operates product carriers including CSC Amethyst. This vessel is one of 10, represented by two classes, that have entered this fleet since 2007.
With an overall length of 184.95m, the vessel has a deadweight capacity of 49,982 tonnes and, at 31,534gt, is now the largest tanker to have visited Dunedin.
Up to now, the largest had been the 31,255gt Probo Gull, which berthed on May 25, 2001.
CSC Amethyst was laid down on October 8, 2008, and delivered on September 28, 2009.
Together with the other nine tankers, it was built at Nanjing by the Jinling shipyard.
It is also part of the the China Shipping conglomerate and comes under a division with the the title of China Changjiang National Shipping (Group) Corporation.
The group has seven large and medium-sized yards that have an annual output in the region of 400,000gt.
The Jinling facility has eight horizontal building berths and four outfitting berths, and constructs all types of vessels up to 50,000dwt.
It was founded in 1952 to build smaller vessels for the domestic market.
Since the 1990s, the yard has been building larger ships for domestic and foreign owners.
In recent years, it has been one of several yards in China that have been turning out a standard-type of 1118TEU container ship, some of which called here. Maersk Radford, a regular visitor since March 2009, was built by the Jinling yard in 2007.
Crystal Symphony's visit today marks the end of another cruise season that began on October 22.
Over this period, 15 larger vessels made 45 visits to Port Chalmers while Dunedin had seven calls from four smaller ships. Compared with the previous season, the lower harbour had 14 vessels making 51 visits, while Dunedin received 14 visits from five ships. However, next season is set to be a bumper one.
So far, the upper harbour is forecast to receive four calls by two ships, but this is sure to change. For Port Chalmers, 22 vessels are listed to make 60 visits.
Seventeen of them are already known here. Newcomers are Aurora, Balmoral, Pacific Pearl and two new ships, the 36,009gt Silver Spirit, completed last December, and the 32,000gt Seabourn Sojourn, due for delivery in three months.
