On September 11, SFL Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter “SFL” or “the company”), controlled by Norwegian shipping tycoon John Fredriksen, disclosed that it had reached an agreement with Hapag-Lloyd to extend the charter contracts for six 15,400 TEU container ships by another seven years, with charter terms running to 2035–2036 respectively, indicating that the current container ship charter market is very strong.

As of now, SFL controls 61 vessels of various types, including 16 tankers, 2 dry bulk carriers, 30 container ships (including 5 newbuildings), 11 car carriers and 2 drilling rigs. Including the above charters, SFL’s contracted charter hire backlog totals approximately US$4.6 billion.

Ole B. Hjertaker, CEO of SFL Management, said, “We are pleased to further strengthen our long-term partnership with Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest liner company.” According to the latest Alphaliner data, among the world’s top 100 liner companies by capacity, Hapag-Lloyd ranks fifth, operating 286 container ships with a total capacity of 2.396 million TEU, of which 134 are owned and 152 are chartered in. In addition, Hapag-Lloyd has an orderbook of 64 newbuildings, totaling about 499,000 TEU.