South Korea's STX Pan Ocean has secured a 20 year, USD 420 million deal with steelmaker POSCO. The consecutive voyage contract will involve the shipment of coking coal and iron ore, mainly from Australia to South Korea.

STX said that the contract will begin on May 1st 2011. The main reason for entering into the deal was to secure a stabilized source of profit.

In July 2010, STX announced that it had won a 10 year USD 100 million contract to transport coal for Korea South East Power, while it revealed in May 2010 that it had secured a 10 year contract to transport 1M tonnes of coal a year from Indonesia to India.

(Sourced from www.fairplay.co.uk)