NYK to charter 4 of OOCL’s new big ships

NYK to charter 4 of OOCL’s new big ships    NYK Line said Thursday it has entered into an agreement with fellow liner carrier OOCL to charter four of the 13,000-TEU ships OOCL has ordered in recent weeks.
   OOCL this week exercised an option to add four such vessels to a previous order of six. So NYK will chartered four of the 10 ships on a three-year deal, with the first ship to be chartered in 2013.
   NYK and OOCL are partners on the Grand Alliance.
   'Both parties intend to deploy these 10 ships within the Grand Alliance service network to allow for a service upgrade,' NYK said in a statement.
   The ships will be deployed on the Asia/Europe service — most such services are being slow steamed and operated with 10 vessels — OOCL confirmed to American Shipper this week.
   Among the world's top 20 container lines, NYK and OOCL have the two lowest proportions of chartered capacity, relative to their operated fleet size. NYK charters 23.8 percent of its 406,118 TEUs of capacity, while OOCL charters 30.8 percent of its 409,352 TEUs.
   NYK has been on a drive the past two years to reduce its owned asset load and focus on chartering while waiting for new vessel innovations to emerge. American Shipper reported on NYK's chartering strategy in its May issue.
   In the report, NYK said it would increase the percentage of its fleet on short-term charters from 10 percent at the start of 2010 to 30 percent to 40 percent by 2016. ' Eric Johnson