Two experienced gas shipowners are duelling it out to be the first to net contracts from an Indian client to back orders potentially worth up to $840m for a new breed of vessel — the very large ethane carrier (VLEC).

Belgian shipowner Exmar is understood to have paired up with DSME, and BW Gas with Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), to build the vessels for a project floated by Reliance Industries of India to support its planned ethane imports from the US.

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