The acceptance of the third container carrier of the six vessels built for the Far East Shipping Company (FESCO) at JinlingYard in China was held on October 17, 2006. Container capacity of the Fesco Ayon vessel is 1080 TEU. The container-carrier is called in honor to tanker of Ayon that worked in 1970-eis in FESCO. Introduction of this new carrier has increased FESCO container fleet to 28 vessels with total container capacity of 32 thou TEU. FESCO’s total container capacity has increased by 56% against its capacity at the beginning of the year. Total deadweight of FESCO’s fleet has now reached 1.1 million tons. 40% of the fleet’s deadweight falls on container carriers, 60% - other vessels.
The fleet’s backlog of contracts includes 10 more vessels including three 1080-TEU container carriers to be built at JinlingYard in China, three 1730 –TEU container carriers and four 3091 –TEU container carriers to be built at Szczecin shipyard in Poland. All these vessels are to be included into FESCO fleet before the end of 2009. FESCO’s total container capacity will then reach 50 TEU. This year investments into the fleet amounted to $270 million, investments into the contracts of three coming years make about $400 million.