Evergreen Adds Two More Ultra-Large Boxships to Orderbook 

Buoyed by strong earnings and continued forecasts for long-term demand for container capacity, Taiwan’s Evergreen Group has placed another order for ultra-large boxships before the line even took delivery on its current orders for giant new vessels. Evergreen Group signed a contract at the end of last week for the construction of two more 24,000 TEU containerships, these to be built by Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, and China Shipbuilding Trading Co.

Evergreen, which is ranked seventh-largest by Alphaliner in order of TEU capacity, is in the midst of one of the industry’s largest expansion programs. It currently has a total capacity of 1.3 million TEU, but with the second-largest order book in the industry, is poised to jump to fifth based on total capacity. The line currently operates nearly 200 vessels, of which just over half are owned and the others are on charter. 

The latest order is an expansion of a four ship order placed with CSSC in November 2019, which called for four 24,000 TEU containerships. Hudong Zhonghua is building two of the ships, including the lead ship in the class. Before the new order, Evergreen already had a total of 10 A-Class containerships each with a capacity of 24,000 TEU on order. 

Hudong Zhonghua reports the two new vessels will be independently designed incorporating the latest green principles. Built in accordance with TIER III specifications, the vessels will reportedly be high efficiency and energy saving. Employing Hudong’s bow design, large-diameter propellers, and energy-saving ducts, the ship will have advantages of speed and low energy consumption. No delivery date was specified in the announcement.

Evergreen’s fleet renewal program will gradually phase out older vessels and return chartered vessels to their owners. According to Evergreen, the goal is to establish one of the youngest, most technically advanced, and sustainable containership fleets. As of the beginning of 2021, the group had 53 newbuildings to be delivered, including vessels owned by the carrier and ships chartered in, of which more than 30 will be owned by Evergreen. The order book contained ten A-type ships of 24,000 TEU, thirteen F-type ships of 12,000 TEU, fourteen O-type ships of 2,500 TEU, and sixteen C-type ships of 1,800 TEU, all to be delivered by the end of 2022. The first of the A-type vessels is pending delivery from Samsung Heavy Industries and is expected to become the largest containership in the world. 

Earlier this month, Evergreen Marine Corp. reported continuing strong increases in earnings as a result of the strong demand for container capacity. Rising freight rates helped the company to report in June a 14 times increasing in net profits based on a staggering 145 percent year-on-year increase in revenues.