dish Carriers and NSB Group have created a joint venture to manage a new series of multipurpose vessels, formalizing their cooperation around the D500 newbuilding program.

The new company, Hinode Shipmanagement, is based in Buxtehude, Germany. It brings together the commercial and operating experience of dship Carriers and the technical ship management strengths of NSB Group. Lars Feller, chief executive of dship Carriers, will lead the venture together with managing director Markus Thewes, chief commercial officer of NSB Group.

The venture will oversee six D500 multipurpose newbuildings now under construction at shipyards in China. Delivery is scheduled from June 2026 to the end of 2027. Each vessel will have a deadweight of 14,999 tonnes and dimensions of 149.95 m by 23.5 m.

The ships will be fitted with Liebherr cranes with a combined lifting capacity of up to 500 tonnes. Their starboard-side deckhouse arrangement is designed to free up more deck area and support greater cargo intake and payload capacity.

Hinode Shipmanagement will assume full management responsibility for all six vessels.

Feller said the partners had adopted a dedicated structure for the D500 program and for multipurpose vessel operations more broadly, adding that the new venture was built with a partner offering the required expertise, experience, and transparency.

Tim Ponath, chief executive of NSB Group, said the company had been involved in the D500 project from the newbuilding stage and that moving into full ship management with dship Carriers marked the logical next step.