The carrier said Friday it will purchase 10 8,000-TEU ships from Samsung Heavy Industries, with the first vessel due for delivery in 2012.
'The 10 ships are the beginning of a program of a new generation of container vessels that will be ordered by Evergreen Line from several shipbuilding yards in Asia,' Evergreen said in a statement. 'Details of the entire program will be made public as the company, founded in 1968, continues to negotiate both the price and the technological capability of the shipyards to meet the carrier's very strict standards of environmental protection and fuel conservation.'
Evergreen said the new order would continue the company's environmental, using the 'Greenship design concept developed by Evergreen Group Chairman Chang Yung-Fa nearly 10 years ago and first introduced in 2003.'
The order is likely just the start of an aggressive ship-ordering phase for Evergreen, which was the fourth-largest carrier in the world by fleet capacity in 2009, but has dropped to sixth as other carriers have taken delivery of new vessels the past few months.
Chang intimated to the Taiwanese press in April that the line plans to eventually add 100 new vessels, with orders for as many as 32 coming this year.
Taiwan's United Daily Press reported that Evergreen is planning an order for another 12 8,000-TEU ships from CSBC Corp., Taiwan's largest shipbuilder.
The line's current fleet is 155 vessels (90 owned and 65 chartered) with a total capacity of 566,518 TEUs, according to the maritime news service Alphaliner.
