Evergreen Marine Corporation will decommission 31 ships through 2013 by scrapping vessels and returning chartered ships to their owners, Dow Jones reported.
"We hope to mitigate the overcapacity situation. Rates on some US and Europe routes are below costs," Evergreen Group public relations official Katherine Ko said.
The decommissioning will reduce the company's fleet by about 17 percent if no new ships are ordered. Ko said the company may order new ships when prices are "reasonable."
Evergreen Marine, Taiwan's largest container shipping company by revenue, has a fleet of 180 ships, about half of which are chartered.
The company will start decommissioning older ships, the oldest of which is 26 years old, Ko said.
Evergreen Marine Chairman Arnold Wang said in February the company planned to expand its fleet and add 100 new ships, or a total of 400,000 TEUs, when ship prices fall to US$10,000 per TEU.
The average price per TEU was quoted at $16,761 in July, down 37 percent from a year earlier, according to JP Morgan.
Cargo News Asia Pacific
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