Maersk Line CEO says company will order mega-vessels in second quarter
By: Reuters | Feb 26 2015 at 03:26 PM | Liner Shipping
Maersk Line will place an order for a number of new mega-container vessels, each with a capacity to hold around 18,000 20-foot containers, in the second quarter despite an imbalance between supply and demand in the industry.
The world’s largest container shipping company currently operates a fleet of 619 vessels will need to buy new and bigger vessels to grow with the market, Chief Executive Soren Skou said.
“We will order vessels similar to the Triple-E class in the second quarter,” Skou told Reuters at an interview in the group’s headquarters in Copenhagen, declining to specify how many ships would be ordered.
Maersk Line will spend $9 billion on new vessels over the next three years. A Triple-E vessel, until recently the largest container ships ever built, typically costs around $185 million.
Bigger ships together with lower fuel prices and adjustments of routes have helped the company reduce costs by more than $4 billion in the last three years and cost cutting will also be the main driver to improve profit in the future, Skou said. (Reuters)