Last August China’s COSCO announced that it was going to scrap 13 ships, including four container carriers and nine bulkers, as part of a restructuring. In the past six months it has carried out that plan, although it has revised the number of ships. In the first quarter it sent 12 container vessels and four bulk carriers to the breakers, representing an aggregate capacity of 803,087dwt.
Among the ships were the container vessels Longhou, Conghe, Yanhe, Longhe, Shenghe, Tenghe, Zhonghe, Puhe, Taihe, Junhe, Yuanhe and Feihe, all of which were previously owned by COSCO Container Lines Co Ltd, and the four bulk carriers Pengye, Pengqing, Xinshenghai and Bailuhai.
Since then it has sold another six bulkers and one box ship for scrap, with a further 18 vessels to be disposed of by the end of this year. However, the ‘dent’ this will make in the overall COSCO fleet is small, as the state-controlled company had 173 container ships and 319 bulkers under its control at the start of the year, with another 50 vessels on order. JS
