Ningbo Ocean Shipping Prepares Fleet Expansion with Eight Leased Vessels
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Ningbo Ocean Shipping, a Chinese shipping company, reported plans to add eight new vessels through long-term finance lease agreements with unrelated leasing companies. The plan includes four 7,000 TEU containerships, two 14,000 TEU containerships and two 7,000 CEU PCTC vessels for vehicle transport. Under this scheme, the leasing companies would be responsible for purchasing and retaining ownership of the vessels, while the carrier obtains capacity through leasing.
Amounts and terms
According to the statement released on the night of October 29, the lease agreements will not exceed 20 years. The planned lease payment caps are RMB 3,900 million for the four 7,000 TEU containerships, RMB 4,000 million for the two 14,000 TEU containerships and RMB 2,400 million for the two PCTCs, bringing the aggregate amount to no more than RMB 10,300 million, equivalent to approximately US$1,530 million at the reference exchange rate of October 30.
Second announcement in a month
This marks the second time in a month that Ningbo Ocean Shipping has announced a capacity expansion through vessel leasing. In early October, the board of directors had approved the long-term lease of two 7,000 CEU dual-fuel LNG PCTC vessels, with total lease payments not exceeding US$480 million, a proposal that shareholders approved on October 26. The new eight-vessel plan is in addition to that earlier program.
Scale of the expansion
The six containerships in the new plan would add 56,000 TEU of capacity, a figure equivalent to more than half of the 105,000 TEU the company operated as of the end of June 2026, giving a sense of the scale of the projected investment relative to its current fleet. The proposal has already received board approval, though shareholder approval is still pending, and as of October 30 no definitive agreements had been signed with the lessors.
Financial results
On the same day as the announcement, Ningbo Ocean Shipping released its third-quarter 2026 report. In the first nine months of the year, the company recorded operating revenue of RMB 5,177 million, a year-on-year increase of 14.81%, while net profit attributable to the parent company stood at RMB 482 million, down 9.64% from the previous year. Total assets reached RMB 11,867 million, up 34.96% from the close of the previous fiscal year.
