Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) yesterday said it has become the nation’s first container shipper to save money by using the newly expanded Panama Canal after one of its vessels sailed through the Cocoli locks on Saturday last week.
The canal expansion project, which saw the construction of a third set of locks is expected to triple the cargo throughput, as larger vessels would be able to utilize the key conduit for global maritime trade, shipping industry experts have said.
The Ever Lambent, the company’s L-type 8,452 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) container ship, which has a cargo capacity of 104,000 tonnes, made its way through the canal, the company said.
“The Ever Lambent is capable of carrying the same capacity of two conventional D-type Panamax vessels with a capacity of 4,200 TEUs, and yields 40 percent savings in fuel consumption and carbon emissions, representing a significant boost in efficiency and competitiveness for the company through lower per-unit operating costs,” Evergreen Marine public relations official John Chen (陳泰澄) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
The firm has initiated plans to change its fleet composition to gradually replace its Panamax vessels with ships whose capacities range between 4,000 TEUs and 5,000 TEUs, Chen said.
Panamax vessels are at an awkward place, as they are too small to be efficient in long-haul routes and too large to dock at smaller Southeast Asian ports in Indonesia and Malaysia, where shipping demand has remained steady, he said.
“We are still studying the expansion’s effects on the industry and the changes in fleet composition will begin with chartered ships as their contracts conclude,” Chen said, adding that hasty ship retirements would limit the company’s ability to seize opportunities during rebounds in shipping demand.
In addition, the company is to form slot-swapping partnerships — where shipping capacity, measured in TEUs, are reserved and swapped with other shippers on the US east coast.
In April, Evergreen Marine signed a memorandum of understanding with three foreign counterparts to form the Ocean Alliance, which is expected to begin operating in the first quarter of next year, while marking the company’s exit from the CKYHE Alliance, which it has been a member of since 2014.
Chen said the decision would yield greater synergistic gains, as the company’s strategy shares great similarities with prospective members of the Ocean Alliance.
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