MED SHIPPING ORDERS TEN 6,700 TEU SHIPS FOR EUROPE/ASIA TRADE

MED SHIPPING ORDERS TEN 6,700 TEU SHIPS FOR EUROPE/ASIA TRADE    Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Co. has ordered 10 ships of 6,700 TEUs each.
   The ships have the same width configuration as the Maersk Sealand and P&0 Nedlloyd big-ship fleets.
   They will all be deployed in the Europe/Asia trade, said Capt. Pasquale Formisano, director of the company. At present Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s Asia/Med/northern Europe service uses 10 vessels of    3,500-TEU capacity.
   Mediterranean Shipping Co. will reportedly pay over $60 million per ship, around 30 to 40 percent lower than the initial ordering cost to    Maersk Sealand and P&O Nedlloyd.
   The Daewoo and Hyundai shipyards in Korea will build five of the ships each to achieve a short period of delivery. The first one will be ready by June 2001.
   The Mediteranean Shipping Co. ships are nominally 100 TEUs larger than Maersk Sealand’s 6,600-TEU “S” and “C” class ships, whose practical capacity is considered substantially larger than this.
   Capt. Formisano declined to comment if the new ships would be larger than these. “We are not competing on whether we will have the largest ship,” he said.