China COSCO Holdings pushed ahead with its fleet scrapping plan in April by dismantling two container ships and two bulk carriers.
The scrapping of the vessels incurred about CNY59 million (USD9 million) in losses, a stock filing of the company said on 13 May.
The demolished vessels were 1993-built container feeders Xiu He and Ya Ye, 1998-built Capesize Tian Fu Hai, and 1967-built Handysize Ming Hai, according to IHS Maritime Sea-web.com.
The four vessels’ capacity totalled 261,800 dwt.
The average age of China COSCO’s self-owned vessels has been reduced after the scrapping, the company said. The scrapping also helped to lift the overall operating competitiveness of the company’s existing fleet with increased fuel savings and environmental protection levels, it added.
China COSCO has scrapped eight container ships and 18 bulk carriers in the first four months of this year.
In January, the company said would scrap 23 vessels of old tonnage totalling 1.1 million dwt for 2015.
In 2013, the Chinese government rolled out subsidy policies to encourage Chinese shipowners to scrap China-flagged old vessels. The subsidies will be doubled if shipowners order new tonnage at Chinese shipyards to match the depleted tonnage.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
