FURTHER BOXSHIP SERIES FOR TAIWAN LINE

The award secured by Nihon Shipyard, the joint venture of Imabari Shipbuilding and Japan Marine United (JMU), entails 12 fully-cellular vessels of 3,055TEU capacity to the account of Taipei-headquartered Wan Hai Lines. The deal follows the completion by JMU in recent months of an earlier series of eight similar ships for Wan Hai, which then implemented another phase in its expansive investment programme by entrusting 12 newbuilds of 3,013TEU to the Japanese combine.

The project plays to Japanese strengths in serial production, continuous design refinement, and propensity for targeting known customers.

With respective Imabari/JMU holdings of 51% and 49%, Nihon came into being on January 1 this year. Its remit is the marketing, sale, product development, and planning of all types of merchant ships, except LNG carriers. Ensuing production design, procurement and construction is undertaken by either party.

In the case of the succession of Wan Hai orders, JMU is the nominated builder. The company’s Kure yard, near Hiroshima, produced the initial batch of 3,055TEU-class vessels, ordered in November 2018, and commissioned by the owner’s Singapore subsidiary between September 2020 and May 2021. The design incorporates various JMU-developed energy saving appendages and ranks as one of the most compact in its capacity category, embodying an especially wide beam of 34.8m in relation to overall length of 203.5m.

Deliveries of the newly-booked second series of 3,055TEU vessels are scheduled to start towards the end of July 2023.

The preceding ships are each powered by a seven-cylinder MAN S70ME-C diesel, specified for a 20,000kW output at 91rpm, to ensure a service speed of around 21-22 knots. Tier III NOx compatibility has been sought by Wan Hai for tonnage contracted this year.

The Taiwanese group, which currently operates 86 owned and 64 chartered vessels, is maintaining a vigorous fleet renewal and expansion strategy. Besides the two series of 3,055TEU newbuilds from Japan, a contract was placed with Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard and China Shipbuilding Trading involving 12 ships of 2,038TEU. Deliveries of the latter began this year and will continue into 2022.

2021 has brought a succession of new orders, comprising 12 vessels of a 3,013TEU design placed with Nihon/JMU and a total of nine 13,200TEU mainliners booked in two tranches from Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The latest transaction at Nihon/JMU entailing 12 more newbuilds of 3,055TEU gives further expression to Wan Hai’s strategy of sharpening competitiveness and scale in the fast-growing medium-distance liner trades linking economies in eastern and southern Asia.