Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines is looking to take its spending on containership newbuildings to more than $1.1bn.
The liner company is said to be holding discussions with Hyundai Heavy Industries for up to six 13,000-teu vessels.
Shipbuilding sources said Wan Hai is looking to order five or six newbuildings at the South Korea shipyard for delivery in 2023.
They described the newbuildings talks between the two companies to be “progressing well” and the signing of the containerships contract may take place by April. The company is said to be opting for vessels that run on conventional fuels.
Officials at HHI were not available for comment, while Wan Hai did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Newbuilding experts believe Wan Hai will be asked to pay close to $110m each for the neo-panamax containerships.
A newbuilding source said shipbuilding prices have gone up.
“If the company was to order the vessels last year, it would probably cost around $95m apiece,” he said.
The source added that the last done deal for 13,000-teu newbuildings at HHI was signed by Capital Maritime & Trading, the private company of Greek shipowner Evangelos Marinakis.
The outfit, which signed up for six scrubber-fitted, 13,000-teu newbuildings was reported to have paid close to $110m per ship.
If Wan Hai is to conclude the order for the neo-panamax containerships with HHI, its total spending on newbuildings this year will exceed $1bn.
In January, Wan Hai signed up for a series of feeder containerships at Nihon Shipyard, which is a newly formed Japanese shipbuilding joint venture between Japan Marine United (JMU) and Imabari Shipbuilding.
Wan Hai, through its Singapore outfit, booked a dozen 3,013-teu vessels worth $565.2m — or $47.1m each — with the Japanese shipyard. The newbuildings, which will meet the International Maritime Organization's Tier III emission standards, are expected to be delivered between the end of October 2022 and 2023.
JMU’s Kure Shipyard will construct the feeder boxships. The newbuilding contract was timely for the Hiroshoma-based shipyard as its orderbook had been left with seven capesize bulkers to be delivered by 2022.
Wan Hai said the order for the feeder boxship newbuildings was part of the company’s fleet-renewal plan.
The liner operator said the new vessels will strengthen the company’s capacity to extend its market coverage and to serve its customers in a timely and reliable manner. The containerships will be operated on intra-Asia trades.
Besides investing on newbuildings to expand its fleet, Wan Hai has tapped the secondhand market for additional tonnage. The owner and operator is calculated to have spent at least $269.5m to acquire 11 secondhand vessels in the past three months, according to TradeWinds estimates.
Brokers suggested that Wan Hai’s active fleet expansion was a result of the company seeing better value in investing in its own vessels rather than making long-term commitments in the currently inflated boxship charter market.
Wan Hai, which has a fleet of 121 ships, ranks as the world’s 11th largest boxship operator, according to Alphaliner.
