Indonesia’s Samudera Shipping Line continues to expand its feeder container ship fleet.
The Singapore-listed company is forking out $59.9m to acquire two 1,500-teu boxships slated for delivery in the second half of the year.
Samudera did not disclose the shipyard nor the seller of the vessels, which were acquired from unrelated third parties on 7 June.
The order is part of the company’s “ordinary course of business”, Ridwan Hamid, executive director of group business support at Samudera, said in a filing.
He added that the acquisition is not expected to impact net tangible assets and earnings per share of the group for the financial year to 31 December 2023.
The ships are the second boxship duo acquired by Samudera this year.
In January, the company purchased two 1,900-teu newbuildings for delivery in the third quarter of 2024 and in the first half of 2025.
The company paid a total of $66m for the two feedermaxes under construction at Naikai Shipbuilding in Japan.
Those vessels are understood to be sister ships to three vessels that the shipowner has on long-term charters from Japanese owners.
The company also has a fourth in the series, for delivery in January 2024, which it has chartered from Japan’s Osaka Asahi Kaiun.
Samudera has six boxships, plus 14 tankers, three bulkers, two LPG carriers, a multipurpose and a platform supply vessel.
It is one of a number of Asian feeder operators that have been renewing their fleets in recent weeks.
Imoto Lines goes larger
Imoto Lines of Japan is understood to be moving to buy larger boxships. The company is said to have purchased three 1,096-teu container vessels originally ordered by Goto Shipping of China — also known as StarOcean Marine — at Japan’s Kyokuyo Shipyard.
Each vessel is understood to be costing about $26m each, according to Alphaliner.
The first ship, A Washiba, was earlier purchased and delivered to the Japanese domestic carrier and operates as the 1,096-teu Kiso (built 2023) under the Japanese flag, the analyst noted.
Two more vessels with delivery in July and September, including the sister ship A Goryu (built 2023), are reportedly chartered from the same owners, said brokers.
The A Goryu is on charter to Shanghai Jinjiang Shipping until the first quarter of 2024.
Alphaliner lists the vessels as the largest operated by Imoto Lines, which runs small container vessels along the Japanese coast.
Until the deployment of the Kiso, Imoto Lines had a fleet of 28 container vessels of which 22 have capacities ranging from just 88 teu to 251 teu, the analyst noted.
