Brazilian miner Vale is both looking to sell more its Valemax VLOCs and order additional vessels to meet iron ore shipping demand to China.

According to José Carlos Martins, Vale’s executive officer of ferrous and strategy the company currently has 35 vessels in operation.

A transcript of a third quarter analyst call on Seeking Alpha quoted him as saying, “we are negotiating in order to sell some of them, some of them to some shipowners in China they have two agreements already in place”.

He added their plan was to move “step-by-step” in this regard.

The company is also planning to order more vessels as Martins said they would need it for the volumes they expect to be shipping to China over the next three years.

In September Vale announced it was selling four VLOCs to Cosco, with long term charter back contracts, and the Chinese shipowner would also order 10 more similar vessels for charter to the Brazilian miner. Later in the same month an agreement was announced with China Merchants for it to also order 10 VLOCs for charter to Vale.