Seaspan Orders Another Six Containerships

Seaspan Corporation on Tuesday announced it has reached a deal to order six additional containerships, bringing to 37 the number of newbuilds the shipowner has ordered since December 2020. 

The six 15,500 TEU neo-panamax box ships will be fitted with exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers) and are expected to be delivered from the second half of 2023 through to mid-year 2024, said Seaspan, a subsidiary of New York-listed Atlas Corp. Once delivered, the vessels will operate under long-term charters with global liner customers.

The ships will be financed from additional borrowings as well as cash on hand, Seaspan said without revealing the "major shipyard" hired to build the vessels.

Seaspan has been ordering new ships at pace over the last four months amid significant demand growth in the container shipping sector. Since December, the world’s largest independent containership lessor has ordered 37 newbuilds and acquired two secondhand vessels, growing its fleet capacity by 580,000 TEU to 1,653,200 TEU.

Bing Chen, Seaspan chairman, president and CEO, said, "Our creative customer partnerships continue to drive best-in-class solutions for our customers and quality growth for our shareholders. The depth of expertise and industry-leading execution of our Atlas and Seaspan teams combine to offer our customers unmatched capabilities by providing consistently differentiated services, operational excellence and high-value win-win solutions. I am proud of Seaspan's strong commitment to leading the industry by leveraging our fully integrated platform, broad scale, flexibility and determination to be the best-in-class business solution provider to our liner customers."

According to Seaspan, its owned and managed fleet consisted of 127 vessels and approximately 1,073,200 TEU as of December 31.