Seaspan Corp has forward-fixed charters on 17 boxships with Cosco Shipping Lines.
The leading tonnage provider has agreed charters with the Chinese carrier on vessels with an average size of 7,000 teu up to two years before their existing contracts expire.
The length of the charters has also been extended, with some deals running until 2027.
Charters on 13 vessels were due to expire in 2022, with two more this year and two in 2023.
The new agreement will see charters on those vessel extended for a further three years.
Seaspan said the renewals would generate about $700m of gross contracted cash flow.
“The immediate result of forward fixing is that we have a very limited number of vessel redeliveries in 2022 and 2023,” said Seaspan chief executive Bing Chen.
He said the charters are based on current strong market conditions and would strengthen the company’s long-term charter business model.
Aggressive expansion
Cosco is one of Seaspan’s main charter partners.
It leases around 35 containerships from the tonnage provider, ranging from small feeders of around 2,500 teu up to 13,000-teu vessels, according to Alphaliner.
The deal locks in employment for a sizeable chunk of Seaspan’s fleet at a time when it continues to expand aggressively.
The shipowner's parent company, New York-listed Atlas Corp, this week unveiled an order for two more neo-panamax containerships.
It said an unnamed major shipyard will build the 12,000-teu units for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The ships, as is customary with Hong Kong-based Seaspan, will then begin long-term charters to a global container line, likely to be Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Co, to which most of Seaspan's new ships are chartered.
According to VesselsValue, before this latest order, Seaspan's orderbook consisted of 35 neo-panamaxes of between 12,000 teu and 15,500 teu, and two 24,000-teu ultra-large containerships.
The total value of these 37 newbuildings is $4.84bn.
The company already has 129 operational vessels, according to shipbroker Clarksons.
