Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) is to continue using “megaships” — vessels with more than 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of capacity — on its European routes, despite a Suez Canal incident, the container shipper said yesterday.
Evergreen Marine uses two kinds of vessels on its Europe routes, six with capacity of 14,000 TEUs and 11 with 20,000 TEUs.
The MV Ever Given, a 20,000 TEU Panama-flagged ship, last month blocked the canal for six days after becoming lodged on a bank.
Photo: Wang Yi-hung, Taipei Times
All of its 20,000 TEU vessels are owned by Japan-based Shoei Risen Kaisha Ltd, Evergreen Marine told an investors’ conference in Taipei, adding that it has chartered the Ever Given.
Evergreen Marine president Eric Hsieh (謝惠全) said that the company would not only continue using the 11 megavessels on routes from Asia to Europe, but would also replace its 14,000 TEU vessels with new 24,000 TEU vessels within the next few years in a bid to boost efficiency.
“If we continue using the 14,000 TEU ships in Europe, we will get beaten, as our rivals use bigger vessels,” Hsieh said. “Changing to 24,000 TEU vessels would make us invincible, as that is the largest ship in the market.”
Evergreen Marine in 2019 assigned three shipbuilders — Samsung Heavy Industries Co, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) Co (滬東中華造船) and Jiangnan Shipyard (Group) Co (江南造船) — to build 10 24,000 TEU vessels, costing a combined US$16 billion, company data showed.
The company would receive the first of the vessels in the second half of this year, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Using larger vessels helps shippers reduce fuel costs per unit and enhance profit margins, if the ships are fully loaded, Evergreen Marine said.
The firm has an upbeat outlook for the rebound in cargo demand this year in light of economic recoveries worldwide, it said.
“When some people saw the Ever Given, they saw a stuck vessel in the canal, but I saw a vessel fully loaded,” Hsieh said.
“You should know that March is usually a light season for sea cargo business,” he said.
Evergreen Marine is not responsible for Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal, as the owner is in charge of the vessel, Hsieh said.
It is Evergreen Marine’s responsibility to ensure the safety of the goods, but the company does not guarantee clients regarding arrival time, as there are too many variables, he said, adding that the company’s risk exposure from the incident is low and insurance would cover losses.
Apart from the Ever Given, 11 other Evergreen Marine vessels were affected by the blockage, he said.
Three turned south to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, while eight were waiting to sail through the canal, he said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
CHINA RIVAL: The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years. “These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.” Chinese chipmakers are in
POLICY REVERSAL: The decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China came after years of tightening controls and has drawn objections among some Republicans US House Republicans are calling for arms-sale-style congressional oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) chip exports as US President Donald Trump’s administration moves to approve licenses for Nvidia Corp to ship its H200 processor to China. US Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which oversees export controls, on Friday introduced a bill dubbed the AI Overwatch Act that would require the US Congress to be notified of AI chips sales to adversaries. Any processors equal to or higher in capabilities than Nvidia’s H20 would be subject to oversight, the draft bill says. Lawmakers would have
RSS