Evergreen Marine Corporation has ordered 24 container ships from Chinese shipbuilder CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding.
The Taiwanese liner operator said on 8 September that the order comprises eleven 3,000TEU vessels, eleven 2,300TEU ships and two 1,800TEU feeders.
Each ship costs between US$28 million and US$51 million, making the total contract value between US$958 million and US$1.1 billion.
The newbuilding order was made in the name of Evergreen’s Singapore-incorporated subsidiary, Evergreen Marine (Asia) Pte Ltd.
The vessels will comply with the International Maritime Organization’s new emission regulations that will be effective from 2023.
Amid the red-hot container shipping market, liner operators and tonnage providers have been rushing to order ships to beat future hikes in newbuilding prices, which have tripled from last year.
Evergreen has been no exception to this, having ordered twenty 15,000TEU boxships from Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) in March and two 24,000TEU vessels from Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding in June. The company also has four 24,000TEU ships on order at Jiangnan Shipyard, due for completion in 2022.
Until year-end, Evergreen is expecting delivery of three 24,000TEU container vessels from SHI and one feeder ship from Hyundai Mipo Dockyard.
Evergreen, now the seventh largest liner operator, has a total capacity of 1.39 million TEU, comprising 116 owned ships and 87 chartered vessels.
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
