Large box ship order to Imabari, company to add giant building dock

Image: Imbari

The Japanese based Imabari Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. announced today that it had manage to secure an order for eleven 20, 000 TEU containerships.

They will have measurements of roughly 400 m x 59 m and are to be constructed in a large newbuilding dry dock of approximately 600 m length x 80 m breadth which is going to be constructed on land that the shipbuilder reclaimed, near its Marugame City headquarters. Imabari plans to invest around Yen 40-billion in the project regarding the new Marugame facility that will include a block factory and three 1, 200-ton goliath cranes.

The first of the giant containerships is scheduled to be delivered in 2018. A construction permit has been granted to the new building dock and the initial building processes are to begin during the following month, with expectations being that it will be completed for October 2016.

Despite the fact that Imabari did not provide any information regarding the byer of the 20, 000 TEU vessels, it is very likely that they are the same vessels as the eleven 18, 000 TEU ships of the same hull dimensions and the same delivery horizon, that were mentioned yesterday by Taiwan's Evergreen Marine in regards to time charter them from Imabari affiliated owner Shoei Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. Mr. Yukito Higaki is the president of Marubeni as well as Shoei.

This raises the question of why some of the vessels are said to have a capacity of 20, 000 TEUs while the others are in the 18, 000 TEU capacity range? The issue maybe derives from the potential difference between the nominal maximum TEU capacity of the vessels and the actual number of containers intended to be carried by the operator. The biggest box ship operator in the world, Maersk Line, for example quotes vessel capacity in regard to filled TEUs with an average of 14 tonnes per box total weight. This value is always lower when compared to the straight TEU capacity.

Despite all this, the vessels ordered to Imabari are nothing other than gigantic. Meanwhile, in March the company will deliver the largest containership ever built in Japan, which will be the first in a total of five 14, 000 TEU ships ordered by "K" Line.

World's First 20,000 TEU Container Ships Ordered for Delivery in 2018  

Ever Larger Box Boats to be Constructed in Japan 

JAPAN – After months of speculation, and as we hinted at in our story earlier this week, the first official order has been placed for series of 20,000 TEU container ships. Imabari Shipbuilding has secured the newbuilding order via the Marubeni Corporation, for an as yet unnamed end user, for eleven units of 20,000 TEU Ultra-Large Container Carriers, measuring around 400 metres in length by 59 metres wide. The first vessel is scheduled to be completed in early 2018.

The deal has been strongly linked with Taiwanese box freight carrier, Evergreen Line, which earlier this week announced an agreement with Imabari affiliate Shoei Kisen Kaisha for eleven 18,000 TEU ships with similar hull dimensions and delivery schedule. Mr Yukito Higaki is president of both the two Japanese based groups Marubeni and Shoei.

Other industry analysts are predicting that the vessels may actually be destined for Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) to operate on various long term container charters. Japan has been losing ground as the supplier of choice of late for these box vessel newbuild with orders for the huge ships latterly going to other Asian nations such as South Korea and China.

In order to accommodate construction of these Ultra-Large newbuilding vessels, Imabari has decided to construct a large newbuilding dry dock, measuring 600m length by 80m breadth, on about 100,000 m²of reclaimed land, located next to its Marugame headquarters. Imabari says it will invest about 40 billion Yen in the new facility which will include a block factory and three 1,200 tonne of goliath cranes and expects the facility to be complete by October 2016.

Imabari is no newcomer to building large vessels of this type with over 200 constructed and has previously held the record for the biggest box vessel built stretching back to a 4,800 TEU ship way back in 1995.