Six more! China Shipbuilding Group wins its first Seaspan container ship order

Seaspan Corporation, the world's largest independent container ship owner, has ordered six 15,500 TEU container ships from China Shipbuilding Group for the first time. Since returning to the newbuilding market at the end of last year, Seaspan has "frantically" expanded its fleet, ordering a total of 37 vessels.

Seaspan orders another 6 new vessels, 3 each from Jiangnan Shipyard and Hudong-Zhonghua.

On March 30, Seaspan announced that it had signed a contract with a major shipyard for the construction of six 15,500 TEU modern container ships. These six high-quality container ships will be equipped with desulfurization devices and will feature industry-leading emission reduction technology. The new vessels are expected to be delivered between the second half of 2023 and mid-2024, and will commence long-term charter contracts with leading global container shipping companies. Seaspan will use additional borrowings and cash on hand to fund the latest order.

Although Seaspan did not disclose details of the order, China Shipbuilding Group confirmed that the six new vessels will be built by its subsidiaries Jiangnan Shipyard and Hudong-Zhonghua, three each. This is also the first time that Jiangnan Shipyard and Hudong-Zhonghua have collaborated with Seaspan, fully demonstrating the construction strength and influence of the two shipyards in the field of large container ships.

Today (March 31), Jiangnan Shipyard and Hudong-Zhonghua announced that they had signed contracts with Seaspan on March 26 for the construction of three 15,500 TEU container ships each via a cloud signing ceremony, further solidifying their leading position in the construction of container ships in China.

The vessel has an overall length of 366 meters, a breadth of 51 meters, and a depth of 30.2 meters. It has a service speed of 22.0 knots and is built to Tier III standards. It is equipped with a hybrid desulfurization tower and uses Hudong-Zhonghua's latest global green, environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, and reliable technical design. Through hull form optimization, the use of large-diameter propellers and energy-saving ducts, the vessel's speed and low energy consumption are fully reflected, and all performance indicators have reached the advanced level of the industry.

       Hudong-Zhonghua stated that as a core shipbuilding enterprise under China Shipbuilding Group and a leading shipyard in China for building a full range of container ships, it has delivered more than 50 large container ships of over 8,000 TEU, including three globally first 23,000 TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships.

Based on its accumulated experience, Hudong-Zhonghua will concentrate its superior strength and make every effort to further optimize the design, improve the process, strengthen management, strictly adhere to quality and safety standards, uphold the corporate spirit of "striving for excellence and innovation", and make every effort to build this type of vessel into a benchmark and high-quality vessel. This will lay a good foundation for long-term cooperation in the container ship field, broaden the scope of product cooperation, and inject new impetus into establishing a closer cooperative relationship between the two parties.

Jiangnan Shipyard stated that in recent years, its performance in the field of large container ships has been remarkable, with its construction projects encompassing 15,000 TEU dual-fuel container ships, 21,000 TEU container ships, 23,000 TEU container ships, and 24,000 TEU container ships. Its rich construction experience and excellent product quality have won high recognition from global customers. The successful signing of this project will further enhance Jiangnan Shipyard's competitiveness and influence in the large container ship construction market, significantly improve Jiangnan Shipyard's container brand image, improve Jiangnan Shipyard's industrial layout of a full range of container ships, and consolidate Jiangnan Shipyard's leading position in the container ship construction industry.

With the new orders, the total number of vessels ordered has increased to 37, making Seaspan the container ship owner with the most orders currently.

As the world's largest independent container ship owner, Seaspan was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Hong Kong. Seaspan provides industry-leading ship management services, mainly providing chartering services to major container liner companies worldwide based on the principle of long-term, fixed-rate, time charters.

As of December 31, 2020, Seaspan's global fleet comprised 127 vessels with a total capacity of approximately 1.0732 million TEU. Including the latest six new vessels, Seaspan has ordered 37 container ships since December 2020 and has also acquired two second-hand vessels, adding a total capacity of 580,000 TEU. Upon delivery, Seaspan's fleet capacity will increase to a total of 1.6532 million TEU.

The vast majority of Seaspan's new vessel orders in this latest round were received by Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group. In December last year, Seaspan returned to the newbuilding market after a decade-long absence, ordering five 12,200 TEU container ships from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group. In February, it ordered two 24,000 TEU container ships from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, making its first foray into the ultra-large vessel market of over 20,000 TEU. In March, Seaspan ordered four 12,000 TEU and ten 15,000 TEU container ships from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding.

In addition, in February this year, Seaspan also ordered 10 LNG-powered 15,000 TEU container ships from Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea, officially entering the LNG-powered vessel market.

Seaspan President and CEO Bing Chen said: “Our creative customer partnerships continue to deliver best-in-class solutions for our customers and high-quality growth for our shareholders. Our team possesses deep expertise and industry-leading execution, providing unparalleled capabilities to our customers through consistently differentiated service, operational excellence, and high-value win-win solutions. I am proud of Seaspan’s unwavering commitment to leverage our fully integrated platform, extensive scale, flexibility and awakening to deliver best-in-class commercial solutions for container shipping customers.”