Yang Ming Marine to charter up to 10 new ships from Seaspan

HONG KONG Jan 4 (Reuters) - Taiwan's government-owned Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp said it would award a 10-year charter contract to New York-listed Seaspan Corp for up to 10 new ultra-large container vessels.

Set to be delivered from 2015, Yang Ming will charter five of the new ships, with an option to lease another five, which will help it cut unit costs, spokesman Winsor Huang said.

"Seaspan has won the tender to provide the new ships and an agreement is expected to be signed later this month," Huang told Reuters on Friday.

The vessels of 14,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU) each, which will be the first ULCS for Yang Ming, are most likely to be built by a South Korean shipbuilder, he said, but declined to provide any details.

The market price to build a new 14,000 TEU is estimated at $120 million.