Asia/Pacific News
CSCL Boosts Its Fleet With Another Eight Containerships
Eight new 13,500 twenty-foot-equivalent (TEU) containerships worth a combined $934 million have been ordered by China Shipping Container Lines Co. Ltd. (CSCL), according to reports.
The vessels, which will be built by Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing Shipbuilding and delivered between April and December of 2018, are expected to be deployed in the Asia-US East Coast trade routes.
CSCL's fleet in 2014 increased by 19 percent year-over-year with the delivery of eight 10,000-TEU ships and two 19,100-TEU vessels; by year's end the company had 158 container ships with a total capacity of 726,613 TEUs, and had carried 8 million TEUs.
In a July 29 stock filing, CSCL said the new vessel order "will further help optimise the group's fleet structure, increase shipment scale, and enhance the group's comprehensive competitiveness."
In April, CSCL reported that it had tripled its profits in the first quarter of 2015 and cited the fall of bunker costs since 2014 as a contributing factor.
