Daewoo Shipbuilding Eyes Maersk Boxship Order

South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd (DSME) is in talks with a unit of A.P. Moller-Maersk for a potential order to build ultra-large container ships, a DSME spokesman said on Monday.

DSME is close to winning an order for some 11 container ships of 20,000 TEU (20-foot equivalent units) from Maersk for about $151 million per vessel or more, South Korean newspaper Korea Economic Daily reported last week, citing unnamed shipbuilding industry sources and foreign media.

British shipbroking house Clarkson also confirmed the deal, which is worth $1.66 billion in total. The ships would be delivered in 2017, Clarkson said in a shipping industry report on Friday.

The spokesman for DSME declined to confirm or deny other details, adding that nothing has been decided.

"Maersk Line never comments on rumours," a spokesman from Maersk Line, the container shipping unit in Danish conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk, said.

DSME won orders totalling $3.9 billion from Maersk in 2011 to build 20 so-called Triple-E container ships of 18,270 TEU, which at the time were the biggest container ships ever ordered.

Reporting by Joyce Lee