Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運), a Taiwan-based container shipping company, has taken delivery of a new 1,805 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) vessel from shipbuilder CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船).
TEUs are used to measure the capacity of a container vessel.
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
The new boat, named Wan Hai 272, is equipped with an advanced global positioning system as well as energy-efficient equipment to lower pollution and meet global environmental protection requirements, the company said.
DELIVERY SCHEDULE
Wan Hai 272 is the second 1,805 TEU vessel the company has received from CSBC, and it is scheduled to take delivery of another next month.
Wan Hai Lines commissioned 14 ships from CSBC and it will take delivery of the remaining vessels over the next two years.
They will include one 1,805 TEU boat, four 1,000 TEU ships and six 4,500 TEU vessels.
Currently, the shipping firm operates a fleet of 80 vessels, 62 of which are self-owned and the remaining 18 are rented.
The global shipping industry is faced with weakening demand as the world’s economic fundamentals have turned sluggish amid the debt crisis in Europe, while the sector is also suffering a glut in capacity.
PROFITABILITY
In the first nine months of this year, Wan Hai Lines posted NT$536 million (US$17.69 million) in net profit, sharply lower than the NT$4.65 billion in net profit recorded a year earlier.
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