After three years, Seaspan Corporation, the former largest "financial sponsor" in the container ship newbuilding market, has returned strongly and launched a new round of "order wave".

On August 9, Seaspan's parent company Atlas Corporation disclosed that Seaspan signed a total of 27 container ship construction contracts in June this year, ranging from 9,000TEU to 17,000TEU. Among them, the construction contracts of 4 new ships were subsequently transferred to customers; and the construction contracts of 13 new ships were transferred to "certain designated persons". After delivery, these new ships will be leased by Seaspan from these designated persons under bareboat charter contracts.

Atlas said that all the 27 ships will be delivered between 2027 and 2028, and each ship will begin to fulfill a long-term charter contract after delivery. However, Atlas did not disclose the specific price of these orders or the shipyards where they were built.

Clarksons data shows that Seaspan signed a contract with New Times Shipbuilding on June 30 this year to build five 16,800TEU dual-fuel LNG-powered container ships, of which the first four will be delivered in 2027 and the last one in 2028. It is reported that these five ships will be leased by Maersk for a long time and are one of the 50-60 dual-fuel container ships that Maersk recently announced to order and lease.

Based on the price of about $200 million for each of the five LNG dual-fuel 16,800TEU container ships ordered by SFL Corporation, a subsidiary of the Norwegian shipping giant, from New Era Shipbuilding, it is estimated that the total value of Seaspan's order from New Era Shipbuilding is about $1 billion (about RMB 7.268 billion). This price is basically the same as Clarkson's current price of $220 million for a new LNG dual-fuel 15,000-16,000TEU container ship.

In addition, it was reported earlier this year that Seaspan will order 10 dual-fuel container ships from two Chinese shipyards, including six LNG dual-fuel 13,000TEU ships from Hudong-Zhonghua and four methanol dual-fuel 9,000TEU ships from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding.

Among these 10 new ship orders, the LNG dual-fuel ships built by Hudong-Zhonghua will be leased by Japan Ocean Network Shipping (ONE) and will be delivered in batches between early 2027 and 2028, with each ship priced at more than US$180 million; the methanol dual-fuel ships built by Yangtze River Shipbuilding will be leased by Maersk and are scheduled to be delivered between the second half of 2027 and 2028, with a unit price of approximately US$125 million.

For reference, Clarksons data shows that the current newbuilding price of a 13,000/13,500TEU LNG dual-fuel container ship is $181 million, a 5% increase from $172 million in the same period last year. At the same time, the newbuilding price of a 7,500/8,500TEU methanol dual-fuel container ship is $118.5 million, a 4% increase from $113.5 million in the same period last year.

It is understood that Seaspan is the world's largest independent container ship owner, with industry-leading ship management services. Its business scope mainly provides charter services to the world's large container liner companies based on the principle of long-term, fixed-rate, and time charter. As of June 30, 2024, Seaspan's fleet has 176 container ships with a total capacity of approximately 1.82 million TEUs and an average age of 7 years.

The latest order marks Seaspan's return to the container ship newbuilding market after nearly three years since the summer of 2021. It is understood that Seaspan was once the largest "investor" in container ship newbuildings. During the previous boom in the container shipping market, Seaspan ordered more than 70 container ships from 2020 to 2021, and its backlog of orders once exceeded 800,000 TEUs, ranking first in the world.

According to the International Ship Network, most of the 70 new ships previously ordered by Seaspan were built by Chinese shipyards, including 15 LNG-powered 7000TEU ships (a total of 105,000 TEUs, built by Yangtze River Shipbuilding Group), 10 7000TEU ships (a total of 70,000 TEUs, built by Waigaoqiao Shipyard), 6 12000TEU ships (a total of 72,000 TEUs, built by Yangtze River Shipbuilding), 5 12200TEU ships (a total of 61,000 TEUs, built by Yangtze River Shipbuilding), 16 15000TEU ships (a total of 240,000 TEUs, built by Yangtze River Shipbuilding), 6 15500TEU ships (a total of 93,000 TEUs, built by Hudong-Zhonghua and Jiangnan Shipyard) and 2 24000TEU ships (a total of 48,000 TEUs, built by Yangtze River Shipbuilding), in addition to 10 15000TEU dual-fuel ships (a total of 150,000 TEUs, built by Samsung Heavy Industries).

In the first half of this year, Seaspan received a total of 18 new ships. The company currently has 41 new ships under construction, which are scheduled to be delivered and put into operation before August 2029.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to container ships, last year Seaspan also ordered 8 of the world's largest 10,800-space LNG dual-fuel car carriers from two domestic shipyards, Waigaoqiao Shipyard and Guangzhou Shipyard International. Among them, Waigaoqiao Shipyard built 6 and Guangzhou Shipyard International built 2. The new ships will be delivered in batches from 2026 to 2027 and will be leased and operated by Hyundai Glovis, the logistics subsidiary of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group.