Dryships has cancelled its four delayed orders for ice class panamaxes at Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries.

The yard and owner have agreed to cancel the newbuilding contracts for the bulker quartet. Dryships has already received refunds of all installments paid to to the yard plus interest.

Dryships boss George Economou has long-expected the contracts to be cut, the Dryships ceo announced in its third quarter results last year that Rongsheng had serious problems. At that point the ships were due for delivery within months, yet the company could not confirm that steel had been cut.

Ziad Nakhleh, Dryships cfo told investors at the time: "We have four Ice class panamax bulk carriers under construction at Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries in China with total remaining installments of $26m in 2013 and $99m in 2014. The delivery of these vessels is severely delayed."

Payments of 10% of the total value of each vessel were made at signing, amounting to $14m in total. The refund guarantees were backed by a major Chinese bank.