Cosco scraps eight vessels

China COSCO Holdings Company Limited has disassembled eight vessels from its aged fleet, the  group said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The scrapped vessels include eight container ships (Hu Tuo He, Xin Hui He, Zhao Qing He, Yang Jiang He and Yong Ding He) and three bulk carriers (Peng Jie, Peng Nian and Peng Cai) that were disposed of during January.

The vessels, with the aggregate capacity of 257,657 deadweight tons, were disposed of as scrapped vessels to different purchasers, all of which are independent third parties of the company, at a total consideration of approximately RMB82.2 million, the filing said.

” The Board considers that the decommissioning of the vessels is conducive to enhancing the overall operational competitiveness of the shipping fleet of the company and is in the interest of the company and the shareholders as a whole,” COSCO said.

According to COSCO’s unaudited financial results for the month ended 31 January 2015, realized losses incurred from the disassembly of the vessels amounted to approximately RMB182.24 million.