Hapag-Lloyd today named the 8,750-TEU Hanover Express at its homeport of Hamburg in Germany for deployment on a weekly Asia/Europe service of the Grand Alliance.
The 103,000-deadweight-ton ship is one of a series of sister vessels being built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea. The vessels are 335 meters (1,099 feet) long and 43 meters (141 feet) wide. The ships have 730 reefer plugs each for refrigerated containers and sailing speeds of 25 knots. Hapag-Lloyd will take delivery of 10 more of the ships by 2010.
Michael Behrendt, Hapag-Lloyd's chief executive officer, said the newbuildings joining the market are urgently required to cope with the expected growth in container transport over the next few years. He cited figures from Global Insight forecasting that global box volume will rise from 100 million TEUs in 2006 to more than 155 million TEUs by 2012.
"Container transport remains a growth market. And there are no signs whatsoever that this will change," he said.
With the delivery of the Hanover Express, Hapag-Lloyd said its fleet now comprises 143 containerships with a total capacity of about 500,000 TEUs, which ranks the Hamburg carrier in fifth place among its peers. The company transported about 2.7 million TEUs in the first half of 2007, up 9 percent over the first half of last year.
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Source: american shipper
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