The Kalkavan family-controlled Turkon Line has ordered two 4,000-teu container ships.

The order has been placed with its group-affiliated Sedef Shipyard, in Tuzla near Istanbul, according to broking sources.

Price was not disclosed, although delivery is scheduled for the first half of 2024, sources added.

Turkon Line operates a fleet of six handysize and feeder container ships of 1,100 teu to 1,800 teu, all built at Sedef, according to Alphaliner.

The newbuilding orders would therefore be the largest in the company’s fleet. To date, the biggest are two chartered vessels of 2,350 teu in a service operated jointly with German carrier Hapag-Lloyd.

Privately owned Turkon Line mainly operates vessels in the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey and to the US east coast.

Its chief executive, Alkin Kalkavan, is also a director of Sedef shipyard, which was integrated into Turkon Holding Group in 2000. It claims to be Turkey’s largest private shipyard, in terms of area and building capacity.

Orders for smaller boxships have been bouncing back after months of hibernation.

Newbuilding orders for vessels below 8,000 teu have risen to 17.3% of the trading fleet, up from 8.4% in October 2020, according to Bimco figures.

At 1.9m teu, the current orderbook is five times larger than at its low point 19 months ago, chief analyst Niels Rasmussen said.

Interest in ships below 8,000 teu accounted for 39.6% of all contracting over the past year alone.

Most focused on the 6,000-teu to 8,000-teu segment, which accounts for 10.8% of the total orderbook.

Orders for vessels below 6,000 teu have also increased significantly, but the orderbook remains smaller than the share of ships older than 20 years, according to Bimco estimates.

That suggests the supply of smaller ships may therefore still decrease in the coming years, possibly in actual numbers and certainly as a share of the fleet, Rasmussen noted.