But it put their size at 20,000 teu, whereas the Taiwanese owner announced earlier this week it had agreed to take 18,000 teu vessels.

The vessels have been ordered by Shoei Kisen of Japan, although Imabari said only that the deal had been developed with the cooperation of Marubeni Corporation for "overseas shipowners".

Evergreen released a statement later on Friday tackling the discrepancy in the given size figures.

It