Zim cancels ship order

Zim cancels ship order    Israeli ocean carrier Zim Integrated Shipping Services has canceled an order for six 1,700-TEU vessels from a Taiwanese shipyard, Lloyd’s List reported Wednesday.
   The order for vessels, due to be delivered in 2010, was canceled as Zim’s financial situation has been made precarious by falling demand and diminishing rates. Reuters reported that Zim’s parent company, Israel Corp., suffered a fourth quarter loss of $312 million. The parent company, however, saw profit for the year rise from $113 million in 2007 to $320 million in 2008.
   The liner carrier has for weeks been negotiating with shipyards in Asia to delay or cancel orders. At the beginning of 2009, Zim had 112 percent of its current capacity on order. The carrier has also pulled back capacity on certain trades over the last few months as rates between Asia and Europe plummeted.
   “Zim were apologetic,” Wang Ko-Hsuan, a spokeperson for CSBC Corp., Taiwan’s largest shipbuilder, told Lloyd’s List. “They said that things were so bad they had no alternative but to cancel the contracts.'