Evergreen adding ship charters despite loss

Fellow Taiwan carrier Wan Hai reports sharply lower profit in the second quarter.    Despite a loss in the second quarter of 2018, Evergreen Marine Corp. is moving forward with further fleet renewal.
   Evergreen said it is making plans to charter an additional 38 smaller containerships on top of an existing large order book.
   According to filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, two Evergreen Marine companies — EGH, identified as a direct subsidiary, and Greencompass Marine, identified as an indirect subsidiary — will each charter 12 ships with 1,800-TEU capacity and seven 2,500-TEU ships for a total of 38 vessels. It’s not clear if the new ships will only be used to replace existing ships in the Evergreen fleet or whether they will also result in Evergreen having even more capacity.
   The new charters follow earlier announcements by Evergreen for fleet renewal and expansion plans.
    In an April 27 presentation at a SinoPac Securities conference in Taipei, Evergreen said it would grow its fleet from 195 ships with 1,086,335-TEU capacity to one with capacity of 1.55 million TEU.
   At that conference, Evergreen said it would add 45 ships with 482,330 TEUs by the end of 2021.
   They include 20 owned ships with capacity of 2,800 TEUs each that are being delivered between 2017 and 2019. Evergreen said it was able to order the ships when prices for new vessels were low. It said they feature wide-beam hull designed for shallower ports in intra-Asia trade and better cargo-handling capacity.
   The company also is chartering 10 ships, each with capacity of 20,000 TEUs to be delivered by the end of 2019. Evergreen said it would take delivery of 20 chartered ships in 2020-21, each with capacity for 11,000 TEUs.
   Evergreen said it had a loss of 1.78 billion new Taiwan dollars (NTD) or U.S. $57.6 million in the second quarter of 2018 compared with a profit of 2.9 billion NTD in the second quarter of 2017.
   Operating revenue in the second quarter of 2018 was 38.3 billion NTD compared with 37.7 billion NTD in the second quarter of 2017.
   In the first half of 2018, Evergreen Marine has lost 1.76 billion NTD compared with a profit of 3.07 NTD in the first half of 2017. Revenue for the first half of the year was 75.1 billion NTD compared with 71.5 billion in the first half of 2017.
   Meanwhile, fellow Taiwan carrier Wan Hai reported sharply lower profit in the second quarter when compared to the same period last year.
   Wan Hai said its second-quarter 2018 profit was 259.9 million NTD compared with 900.6 million NTD in the second quarter of 2017.
   Operating revenue in the second quarter of 2018 for Wan Hai was 15.9 billion NTD compared with 15.3 billion NTD in the second quarter of 2017.
   First-half 2018 profit was 392.2 million NTD, while first-half 2017 profit was 700.3 million NTD. Operating revenue in the first half of 2018 was 30.9 billion NTD compared with 29.2 billion NTD in the first half of 2017.