ATHENS (Bloomberg) — Tsakos Shipping and Trading SA, the closely held arm of Athens-based Tsakos Group, may have ordered six ships from Sino Pacific Heavy Industries Group's Zhejiang Shipyard for about $210 million, Optima Shipbrokers Ltd. said.Tsakos Shipping may have placed the order for the vessels, which carry commodities such as coal and iron ore, each with a capacity of 53,000 deadweight tons, with the first scheduled for delivery in December 2007, four set to arrive in 2008 and the last in 2009, Voula, Greece-based Optima Shipbrokers wrote in a weekly report yesterday.

Tsakos Shipping manages and operates a fleet of about 69 tankers, bulk carriers and container ships with a total capacity of about 6.7 million deadweight tons, according to the company's Web site. The figures include the tankers of its publicly traded unit Bermuda-based Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd.

Optima Shipbrokers also said that Athens-based Quintana Maritime, whose ships carry commodities, bought the dry-bulk carrier Mineral Temse for about $93.5 million. The ship, which has a capacity of 177,000 deadweight tons, is still under construction and is scheduled for delivery in April 2007, the broker wrote.

The Mineral Temse currently belongs to Bocimar, the dry-bulk unit of Antwerp-based Cie. Maritime Belge SA, and has already been hired out to China's Transfield Shipping Inc. with its cargo due to be loaded on April 16, according to Lloyd's-Fairplay data on Bloomberg.