Evergreen Marine Corporation has embarked on another round of new container orders and has confirmed that the 20 vessels recently ordered will all be built at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI).

After announcing orders for twenty 15,000TEU ships late last month, Evergreen clarified that all the ships will be contracted at SHI, rather than splitting the orders between the South Korean shipyard, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Japan’s Imabari, China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) and Jiangnan Shipyard. The ships, costing between US$115 million and US$130 million each, are expected to be delivered in 2023.

In addition, nearly 40,000 containers have been ordered for around US$209 million, the liner operator confirmed in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing on 30 March that its Panama-incorporated and Hong Kong subsidiaries, Greencompass Marine SA and Evergreen Marine (Hong Kong), have ordered a combined 28,000 containers from COSCO unit Dong Fang International Container (Hong Kong) for a total of US$141.17 million.

Evergreen Marine (Hong Kong) has also ordered another 11,500 containers from Singamas Management Services, a unit of Pacific International Lines’ container-manufacturing subsidiary Singamas Container Holdings, for US$68.24 million.

Evergreen’s announcement comes after the Taiwanese carrier announced plans to order more containers on 28 January.

Earlier this month, Evergreen’s container leasing and warehousing subsidiary, Evergreen International Storage & Transport Corporation (EITC), ordered 18,000 containers from its Malaysian factory.

In 2020, container freight rates exceeded 10-year highs, enabling Evergreen to achieve a net profit of TW$28.77 billion (US$1.02 billion), reversing its net loss of TW$223.01 million (US$7.4 million) in 2019.