Taiwan’s Evergreen Line announced further plans to charter seven 14,000-TEU container vessels to replace its fleet of older, smaller, and less efficient ships.
The new ships, owned by Sumitomo Corp. of Japan, are expected to be delivered between 2016 and 2017 and will have a 10-year term of tenancy, reports the Taipei Times.
The move is part of Evergreen’s overall strategy to deploy bigger, more cost-efficient ships without adding substantially to its fleet capacity.
Last year the liner operator said it would launch a fleet modernization program introducing additional large vessels to save unit costs. It said it would charter 10 container ships with capacity of 13,800 TEUs from Greece’s Enesel SA.
Two of the 10 vessels have been delivered since September 2012, with the rest to be delivered in the second half of 2014, according to the report.
But the carrier said it does not intend to raise its capacity significantly, since it plans to retire its self-run older ships or discontinue the leasing contract of its chartered vessels.
The company said last month it expected demand for container shipping to rise this year amid forecasts of a slow global economic recovery.
Photo: Peter Kaminski
