Evergreen to order up to 100 ships

Evergreen to order up to 100 ships    Taiwan's Evergreen Group said Friday it will begin negotiating with shipyards to order as many as 100 containerships next month.
   Barbara Yeninas, a U.S. spokesperson for Evergreen, confirmed the accuracy of an interview in a Japanese newspaper in which Evergreen chairman Chang Yung-fa said the company will begin detailed negotiations for ships with shipyards in May.
   The company is considering ordering:
   ' Up to 32 ships with 8,000 TEUs capacity.
   ' 20 7,024-TEU capacity ships.
   ' 20 5,364-TEU ships.
   ' 20 or more 2,000-TEU feeder ships.
   The company plans to explore talks with shipyards in South Korea, Taiwan and China. Japanese yards have also expressed interest.
   Information service Alphaliner ranks Evergreen as the world's fifth-largest container carrier, with 148 ships with 551,490 TEUs of capacity. This includes 87 owned ships totaling 319,263 TEUs and 61 ships with 232,227 TEUs of capacity.
   It is the only one of the top 20 carriers that has no ships on order, and it is expected the company may be able to obtain much lower prices for new tonnage than those who ordered ships years ago.