E.R. Schiffahrt names two 8,204-TEU ships for CMA CGM

E.R. Schiffahrt names two 8,204-TEU ships for CMA CGM    German ship management firm E.R. Schiffahrt, part of Hamburg’s Nordcapital Group, today in Korea named two 8,204-TEU containerships that will be chartered to CMA CGM.
   The naming ceremony was held at the Samho, Korea, shipyard of builders Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI).
   The “E.R. Tokyo” will be renamed “CMA CGM Carmen” and be deployed on the French carrier’s weekly Asia/Europe North China Express Service (NCX) loop. The “E.R. Texas” will first be subchartered to Mediterranean Shipping Co., operating under the name “MSC Bengal” before returning to CMA CGM.
   The two vessels are the seventh and eighth in a series of nine same-size orders. Three of the nine ships are for charter to COSCO Container Lines with CMA CGM taking the remaining six.
   E.R. Schiffahrt now manages 65 container ships with total capacity of about 300,000 TEUs. It also has 11 ships on order from HHI, with a combined capacity of about 44,000 TEUs, due to be delivered by 2008.