COSCO signing ceremony for 10,000-TEU ships
COSCO and Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries conducted a signing ceremony in Beijing Friday for the construction of four previously announced 10,000-TEU “super post-Panamax” containerships.
The ships are the world’s largest containerships currently on order.
The first of the four ships will be delivered in 2007, COSCO said.
COSCO said in a statement it expects its containership fleet to reach 800,000 TEUs by 2010. An American Shipper survey of the top 20 ocean carriers found that COSCO had a fleet with an onboard container capacity of 263,874 TEUs last summer, making it the world’s ninth-largest in terms of capacity.