Yang Ming Marine TRANSPORT CORPORATION (YML)
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation (Chinese: 陽明海運; pinyin: Yáng Míng Hǎi Yùn) is a Taiwanese ocean shipping company which is based in Keelung, Taiwan (ROC).
The company was founded in 1972 as a shipping line, but has historical links through its merger with the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, which dates back to the Qing Dynasty (1872–1995). Yang Ming currently operates 101 container ships up to 14,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) and 17 bulk carriers.
As of mid-2019, Yang Ming operated a fleet of over 4.2-million-D.W.T / operating capacity 643 thousand TEU, of which container ships are the main service force.,
The Yang Ming Group includes a logistics unit (Yes Logistics Corp. and Jing Ming Transport Co.), container terminals in Taiwan, Belgium, Netherlands and the USA, as well as stevedoring services (Port of Kaohsiung, Taiwan). Yang Ming's service scope covers over 70 nations with more than 170 service points.
On 10 March 2019, Yang Ming has welcomed two additional 14,000 TEU vessels in its fleet, mv YM Warranty and mv YM Wellspring. The ships have been built in Japan at Imabari Shipbuilding, at a cost of nearly 99$ million each. The additional tonnage is sister of the previously delivered mv YM Wellbeing, mv YM Wonderland and mv YM Wisdom.
Along with Hapag Lloyd, Ocean Network Express and Hyundai Merchant Marine, Yang Ming is a member of THE Alliance.
THE Alliance is intended to provide 34 services directly calling at 81 different ports globally.
Under the scope of improving its network, an agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway has been reached in late May 2019, to have containers moved by rail from Vancouver port eastbound towards all Canada.
On 4 June 2018, 83 containers were lost at sea by mv YM Efficiency due to extreme rough weather conditions close to Australia, New South Wales coast, which made the cargo breaking their lashing and falling in the waters. A safety warning had to be issued, as despite no dangerous good were discharged in the sea, some medical and surgical items were noted floating and then recovered ashore, polluting a number of beaches.
In between July and September 2018, Yang Ming agreed to offer a service from Taiwan, Keelung port to US for two batches of nearly 20 containers each, containing over 1700 unused Nuclear fuel rods, after Taiwan Power Company decided to close its fourth nuclear plant.
Safety concerns for possible leakage of radioactive materials were raised, and the first shipment was attended by over 200 police officers and company officers.