Athens: Maersk Line has ordered eleven 19,630-teu containerships from South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) in a deal worth $1.8bn. The contract includes options for six more such vessels.
The contract was signed today at Maersk Line’s headquarters in Copenhagen by Sung-Leep Jung, president and CEO of DSME, and Maersk Line’s CEO Søren Skou (pictured right and left).
“I am very happy with this order. These vessels will help us stay competitive in the Asia-Europe trade and will be key in our strategy to grow with the market,” Søren Toft, COO of Maersk Line, said in a statement today.
“It is the second order this year and we expect to order more vessels, which we can add to our fleet from 2017 and onwards.”
The huge deal had been rumoured for a while, as Splash reported previously.
The Danish carrier ordered seven 3,600-teu feeder vessels from DSME earlier this year.
Maersk says it will invest $15bn in new vessels, retrofitting, containers and other equipment over the next five years in order to grow with global demand and replace less efficient tonnage.
The 400-metre-long vessels will have the largest carrying capacity in the Maersk Line fleet and will be deployed on the Asia-Europe service, replacing smaller, less efficient vessels.
Maersk Line is still awaiting delivery of two 18,500-teu Triple-E vessels later this year, plus seven Baltic feeder vessels due in 2017.
