MAJOR Greek containership owner Costamare has announced shipbuilding contracts and charter agreements for five newbuildings, as well as the completing the financing of two ships ordered in January.

    South Korea's Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering are to build five 8,800-TEU vessels to be delivered over 2013, for which   there are long-term time charter agreements in place with Evergreen.

    Costamare said that both price and charter rates were similar to those agreed in January, concerning the three 9,000-TEU newbuildings contracted with China Shipbuilding Trading Company Limited and Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing Heavy Industry for US$95 million each. Those ships have been chartered to MSC for 10 years at a daily rate of $43,000.

    Company chairman and CEO Konstantinos Konstantakopoulos said: "Since going public, we have successfully executed on our proposed growth strategy, having invested in total over $1 billion in 10 newbuild containerships and 10 secondhand containerships at an attractive point in the cycle.

    "After the Chinese New Year, the market developed as expected, and we are chartering our recently acquired vessels at favourable rates," he said.

    The shipowner also said it has finalised financing for two previously contracted newbuild container ships with a "major" European financial institution. The two vessels were ordered from Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in January.

(Source:http://www.schednet.com)