Half-complete cruiseship newbuilding at STX Europe yard in St Nazaire was halted after GNMTC defaulted on payments.

    MSC France boss Erminio Eschena has confirmed that his company is considering the acquisition of the cruiseship originally ordered by Libya’s state-owned shipping concern and currently half complete at a leading French shipyard.

    Work on the 140,000 gt vessel for General National Maritime Transport Co began at the STX Europe facilities in St Nazaire in December last year. The South Korea-headquartered shipbuilder announced the vessel’s cancellation in June, not on account of the political situation in Libya but because GNMTC had defaulted on payments.

    In a statement at the time, STX said it was confident of finding another buyer. Given that the design was based on MSC’s Fantasia class, there was already speculation that it would be a logical purchase for MSC.

    Known as hull X32, the ship was due to be launched as Phoenicia in December this year. The vessel has 1,739 cabins, and comes at an estimated cost of €550m ($775.8m), although MSC may be in a position to drive a hard bargain.
 

?source:asiasis?