CSAV increases owned fleet

   Liner carrier CSAV said Tucapel, the fifth in a series of seven 8,000-TEU ships being built for it by Samsung Heavy Industries, was delivered Tuesday in Busan, South Korea.
   Two additional ships in the series will also be delivered in the first half of 2012. Like Tucapel, all are named after Chilean rivers.
   Oscar Hasbün, the chief executive officer of the Chilean container shipping company, said in an interview that the addition of the ships is part of CSAV’s plan to increase the ratio of owned to operated tonnage. The company owned just 9 ships representing 7 percent of its capacity at the end of 2010 and will own 17 ships representing 30 percent of capacity by mid-year.
   Hasbün said this will be “a historical high for CSAV, much more in line with the industry practices.”
   Initially the seven ships that CSAV has ordered will be chartered to Maersk Line until July 2013.
   “I chartered them out because we were in a big downsizing,” Hasbün explained. “If I had put them in our fleet today, it would have created an oversupply of vessels that we did not need at this moment.
   “If you look at it from the EBITDA point of view, the fact that I am chartering to someone or using them myself has similar financial impact,” he explained.
   But he said the vessels the company has acquired are shallow draft so they can be used efficiently in Brazilian ports, and its recent orders are “aiming to strengthen our position in our markets” in Latin America.
   The company is also reducing its TEU capacity by 45 percent from its peak in 2011 as part of its restructuring.
   Included in that strategy, CSAV will increase the number of services in which it has joint vessel-operating agreements, from 28 percent to 90 percent, Hasbün said. Those agreements, most of which are with CMA CGM and Mediterranean Shipping Co., will allow the company to reap the economies of scale of larger vessels. — Chris Dupin