Yang Ming wants to charter 10 mega ships Taiwan's government-owned shipping firm Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp will seek offers to charter five new container ships of 14,000 TEU each, plus an option for another five. "This will be an all charter deal, which will give us more flexbility," Yang Ming spokesman Winsor Huang told Reuters. The new ships are expected to be delivered from May 2015, he said.

Singapore's container shipping company Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) has returned to profitability after 18 months of losses - and has confirmed the sale of its Alexandra Road headquarters for USD311 million, reports Cargonews Asia. NOL posted third-quarter net profit of USD50 million, reversing a net loss of USD91.1 million a year earlier, reported the Straits Times. NOL was last in the black in the fourth quarter of 2010.

German shipowner Bernhard Schulte and US financial trader JP Morgan have jointly ordered a series of medium-size boxships in China. Zhejiang Yangfan Group has won the order for a series of up to eight 2,300TEU boxships. The order comprises of four firm new buildings with options for four more. Delivery is scheduled from the second half of 2014 by the latter half of 2015. Industry sources say the new building price is around USD26.5 million per vessel. Source: Asiasis

TUI Cruises announced on Nov. 7, 2012 that the company confirmed the order of a second cruise ship from STX Finland. The production of the second ship will start in summer 2013 and it will be delivered from STX Finland's Turku Shipyard in spring 2015. The sophisticated and highly innovative 99,300 GRT cruise ship will be approx. 294 metres long and approx. 36 metres wide. The ship will have 1,250 staterooms, serve 2,500 passengers and have a crew of 1,000 persons. The cruise ship will have many environmentally friendly features, with a particular emphasis on the vessel's energy efficiency.

TUI Cruises announced today, Nov. 7, 2012 that the company confirms the order of a second cruise ship from STX Finland. The production of the second ship will start in summer 2013 and it will be delivered from STX Finland's Turku Shipyard in spring 2015. The sophisticated and highly innovative 99,300 GRT cruise ship will be approx. 294 metres long and approx. 36 metres wide. The ship will have 1,250 staterooms, serve 2,500 passengers and have a crew of 1,000 persons. The cruise ship will have many environmentally friendly features, with a particular emphasis on the vessel's energy efficiency.

Carnival Cruise Line and Holland America Line have ordered new ships in a deal worth almost $1.3 billion. A 2,660-passenger ship for Holland America Line is scheduled for delivery in autumn 2015 and a 4,000-passenger ship for Carnival Cruise Lines in winter 2016. Parent company Carnival Corporation has signed a memorandum of agreement with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri Both will be a new class of vessel for the cruise lines.

Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk said it did not expect the problems of overcapacity in container shipping to return to pre-crisis levels with only modest growth expected in the next few years, Reuters reports. Growth rates of around 10 percent, the average before the financial crisis, are a thing of the past, daily Hamburger Abendblatt reported Soron Skou telling an industry association in Hamburg. "We expect an average of 5 to 7 percent growth in transportation volumes in the near-term," he said. "We must learn to live with overcapacities." The oil and shipping group said earlier this month it would cut investments in its container shipping unit Maersk Line following low demand for its core Asia to Europe trade. Ship owners are struggling with an oversupply of vessels, high bunker fuel prices and world economic turmoil, forcing banks to pull back from shipping finance amid a four-year-long downturn that is likely to extend well into 2013. France's Societe Generale, Germany's Commerzbank and HSH Nordbank AG are among the financial institutions that have reduced their exposure to the shipping industry, selling significant portions of their maritime portfolios.

Shell recently celebrated the cutting of the first steel for the game-changing Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility’s substructure with joint venture participants, Inpex and KOGAS, and lead contractor, the Technip Samsung Consortium, at Samsung Heavy Industries’ Geoje shipyard in South Korea, Shale Stuff reported. Shell’s Projects & Technology Director Matthias Bichsel said, “We are cutting 7.6 tonnes of steel for the Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility today, but in total, more than 260,000 tonnes of steel will be fabricated and assembled for the facility. That’s around five times the amount of steel used to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Today’s ceremony marks a major milestone in this project, when the innovative thinking and new technology and engineering solutions which will make FLNG possible begin to be realised.” When completed, the Prelude FLNG facility will be 488 metres long and 74 metres wide, making it the largest offshore floating facility ever built. When fully equipped and with its cargo tanks full, it will weigh more than 600,000 tonnes. There will be over 3,000 kilometres of electrical and instrumentation cables on the FLNG facility, the distance from Barcelona to Moscow.

Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) has bagged contracts to manage three LNG carrier newbuildings for Thenamaris LNG Inc, Seatrade Asia online reports. The trio of 160,000 cu m LNG carrier newbuildings are due to be delivered from Samsung Heavy Industries next year. BSM will responsible be responsible for the technical management, and supply of deck and engine personnel of the vessels. “We are delighted to welcome Thenamaris LNG Inc. as a client, said, David Furnival, chief operating officer of BSM.

Representatives from Oceanex Inc., were in Flensburg, Germany last week for the cutting of first steel of what will become the largest Canadian flag container/roll on roll off (Con/Ro) ship. This twenty knot, ice-class vessel, to be named the Oceanex Connaigra, is custom designed for world-wide trade and will be 210 meters in length with a deadweight carrying capacity of 19,500 metric tonnes. www.seanews.com.t...