Industry Marketing News

Neptune Orient to Boost Capacity 7% on Rebounding Trade,Rate

Neptune Orient Lines Ltd., owner of Southeast Asia’s largest container line, plans to boost capacity about 7 percent this year as a rebounding global economy revives trade and freight rates. The company will charter as many as 10 vessels this year, each with a capacity of as much as 6,000 standard twenty-foot equivalent boxes, the CEO said in a March 19 interview.

Neptune Orient will deploy five of the idled ships on Asia- Europe routes. He didn’t say where the chartered ships would be used. Rates on Asia-Europe routes have now risen to a point where it “begins to make more sense” to add capacity, Widdows said. Transpacific rates are still below break-even, he said.

From Bloomberg, March 21, 2010