page_title: Valemax
section_title: Initial career and ban
hierarchical_section_title: Valemax / Career / Initial career and ban
caption_attribution_description: English: Vale Rio de Janeiro (IMO 9572329), one of the world's largest bulk carriers, arriving at Rotterdam on 8 January 2012.
context_page_description: Valemax ships are a fleet of very large ore carriers owned or chartered by the Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. to carry iron ore from Brazil to European and Asian ports. With a capacity ranging from 380,000 to 400,000 tons deadweight, the vessels meet the Chinamax standard of ship measurements for limits on draft and beam. Valemax ships are the largest bulk carriers ever constructed, when measuring deadweight tonnage or length overall, and are amongst the longest ships of any type currently in service.
  The first Valemax vessel, Vale Brasil, was delivered in 2011. Initially, all 35 ships of the first series were expected to be in service by 2013, but the last ship was not delivered until September 2016. In late 2015 and early 2016, Chinese shipping companies ordered 30 more ships with deliveries in 2018–2020. Three additional vessels were ordered by a Japanese shipping company. This brings the total number of Valemax vessels in service, under construction or on order to 68. As of March 2020, there are a total of 66 Valemax vessels in service and two under construction or on order.
context_section_description: On 24 May 2011, Vale Brasil received her first cargo at the Brazilian port Terminal Marítimo de Ponta da Madeira, 391,000 tons of iron ore bound for Dalian in China. However, the ship turned back towards the Atlantic Ocean in June after rounding the Cape of Good Hope and was rerouted to Taranto, Italy. There had been speculation that Vale Brasil was not allowed to enter the Chinese port fully laden, but according to Vale the destination was changed due to commercial, not political reasons. The ship arrived at the port of Taranto on 14 July 2011 to discharge her cargo. Since then, fully laden Valemax vessels have unloaded at various ports, such as Dalian in China, Sohar in Oman, Rotterdam, Ōita in Japan, Dangjin in South Korea, and the transshipment hub Vale has constructed at Subic Bay in the Philippines.
  On 31 January 2012, the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China officially banned dry bulk carriers with capacity exceeding 300,000 tons from entering Chinese ports in order to protect the domestic freight industry. Prior to this, only one of the new very large ore carrier chartered by Vale, Berge Everest, had unloaded Brazilian iron ore at a Chinese port — the ship arrived at Dalian on 28 December 2011 — but this was assumed to be a bureaucratic fluke as no Chinese port has regulatory approval to receive dry bulk carriers of that size.
  According to Vale, the discussions about allowing the Valemax ships to enter Chinese ports had been ongoing since the ban came into force and the Chinese officials had given a preliminary go-ahead for the construction of new berths capable of accommodating the 400,000-ton ships. According to the Ningbo Port Company, the construction of the new port facilities would take two to three years, causing further delays for Vale which in the meantime is losing $2–3 per ton of ore due to the ban. On 15 April 2013, Vale Malaysia became the first 400,000-ton Valemax vessel to call a Chinese port. The partially loaded ship docked at the port of Lianyungang en route from the Vale transshipment hub in Subic Bay, Philippines. However, at the time the Chinese officials had not yet lifted the ban for fully laden Valemax vessels. The first fully laden Valemax vessel to call a Chinese port since 2012, Shandong Da Ren, docked at the Dongjiakou port in Qingdao on 2 October 2014. The ban was officially lifted in July 2015.
caption: Vale Rio de Janeiro arriving at Rotterdam, January 2012.
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S1000fd", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix S1000fd Ver1.03", "Image DateTime": "2012:01:08 16:15:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "286", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1504", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3771", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/340", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Action", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:01:08 16:15:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:01:08 16:15:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "833/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "497/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "109/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3613", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2611", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3648", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2736", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1356", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "6129", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "6129", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "46ebee857ca6d48137365e4575aacf4b"}