Hong Kong’s Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) has entered into shipbuilding contracts with two Cosco yards for the construction of a total of five 23,000 teu mega containerships.
Three vessels will be built at Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering (NACKS) and two at Dalian Cosco KHI Ship Engineering (DACKS). The total price of the contracts is $778.4m.
The vessels are scheduled to be delivered between the first quarter and the fourth quarter of 2023.
OOIL expects to cover about 60% of the contract price through bank financing with the balance to be funded from internal resources.
“The size of the vessels together with the current vessels of smaller size would complete the fleet size of the group and would bring economy of scale to the group. The deployment of vessels will be able to strengthen the market position of the group and enhance the cost competitiveness of the group,” OOIL, the parent of OOCL said in a release.
OOCL was taken over by Cosco in 2018, and planned to grow its fleet by nearly 50% to ensure it crosses the 1m teu mark. The company’s current fleet hovers at around 700,000 teu.
Comments
Post a Comment