SFL Extends Six 15,400 TEU Ships to Hapag-Lloyd and Adds $750m of Backlog

SFL Corporation has agreed a seven-year extension on the charters of six 15,400 TEU container ships to Hapag-Lloyd, keeping the vessels employed until some point between 2035 and 2036 at firm rates struck against the current container market.

The extension adds approximately $750m to the company's fixed-rate charter backlog and lifts the total to about $4.6bn. That backlog figure covers fully owned vessels and rigs as they stood on 30 June, transactions agreed since, and the whole of four partly owned 19,000 TEU container ships that the company manages.

Ole B. Hjertaker, chief executive of SFL Management, set the deal against a year in which more than $1bn has been added to the backlog. "We are pleased to further strengthen our long-term relationship with Hapag-Lloyd, the world's fifth-largest container line," he said when the owner announced the extension on 11 September, describing the contracts as earnings visibility that supports the company's capacity to keep distributing cash.

Charter cover running into the middle of the next decade takes six hulls out of the spot-exposed pool for longer than a single freight cycle, at rates fixed while the container market is strong. For the charterer the trade runs the other way: capacity at a known cost through a period in which newbuilding deliveries and the routing of Asia to Europe services are both unsettled.

SFL owns a mixed fleet of tankers, bulk carriers, container ships, car carriers and offshore drilling rigs, and has paid a quarterly dividend without interruption since its New York listing in 2004. The company reported net income of $34m for the second quarter.

This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 15 September 2026.