At the occasions of the recent christenings of CMA CGM ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT at Hamburg and CMA CGM JULES VERNE at Marseilles, the group’s founder and chief executive Jacques Saade already hinted at an imminent order and the French carrier now appears to go ahead with it. CMA CGM will place firm orders for three 16,000 teu ships at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries. In addition, CMA CGM is looking at a further three ships of similar size, also to be built at Samsung. The initial trio is slated for delivery in the first half of 2015 and the additional ships would come on stream later that year. The choice of the yard is believed to be linked to an earlier order that Hamburg’s non-operating owner Claus Petter Offen placed on behalf of CMA CGM as far back as 2007.

South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries said on Thursday it had won a $3.0 billion order to build a giant offshore oil storage platform in Nigeria. Under the deal with an unnamed client, the shipbuilder will construct the floating platform used to store and process oil, which will begin operations in 2017, Samsung said in a statement. The Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platform is 330 metres (1,082 feet) long, 61 metres wide and capable of storing up to 2.3 million barrels of oil, it said. The latest deal is the most expensive globally for this type of structure, Samsung said, adding many parts of the platform will be built in Nigeria.

Taipei: Evergreen Marine is looking to cut costs by a further 10% by the end of this year. The shipping line is also looking to develop its business in emerging markets in Latin America and Southeast Asia. The company posted NT$1.84bn (US$61m) in net losses in the first three months, compared with a net loss of NT$3.14bn. [17/06/13]