Overview
Evergreen Marine Corporation (EMC) is a Taiwan-based container shipping company that carries cargo on scheduled international liner services. Chang Yung-fa founded the company in Taiwan in 1968. It operates as the container-shipping business most closely associated with the Evergreen Group and trades under the unified Evergreen Line brand with affiliated carriers, including Italia Marittima and Evergreen Marine (UK). The company’s website provides corporate and fleet information, and its ShipmentLink portal is used for schedules, cargo tracking, and e-business transactions.
Evergreen Marine is an ocean carrier, not a provider of every inland logistics service. It participates in vessel-sharing arrangements, including the Ocean Alliance with CMA CGM, COSCO Shipping, and OOCL, an arrangement that has been the subject of U.S. Federal Maritime Commission filings and monitoring. Depending on the booking and commercial terms, intermodal handoffs, customs brokerage, drayage, warehousing, and final delivery are often arranged by freight forwarders, terminals, or other logistics providers rather than by the ocean carrier itself.
History
Chang Yung-fa established Evergreen Marine in Taiwan on 1 September 1968, initially with one secondhand general cargo ship, commonly identified as Central Trust. As containerization spread in the 1970s, the company moved into full-container services and launched a Far East–U.S. East Coast container service in 1975.
In 1984, Evergreen began a two-way round-the-world container service, with eastbound and westbound sailings at roughly 10-day intervals. The service was an early example of a global liner loop and helped establish the carrier among the larger container lines of the late 1980s; published fleet rankings for that period should be read as time-specific rather than as a permanent market position. Later growth combined newbuildings with related-company expansion. Evergreen acquired the Italian line Lloyd Triestino in 1998; that business was renamed Italia Marittima in 2006. In 2002 the group established the London-based carrier Hatsu Marine; it was a group carrier, not the purchase of a long-established independent line, and its activities were later brought under Evergreen Marine (UK).
Network planning since then has centered on larger ships and alliance structures. On 23 March 2021, Ever Given, a Golden-class ship of about 20,124 TEU operated by Evergreen and owned by a group affiliate, ran aground in the Suez Canal and blocked the waterway for six days until it was refloated on 29 March. The BBC’s account of the refloating described the blockage; separate trade estimates, often cited at roughly $9 billion to $10 billion of goods a day, illustrated the cost of a chokepoint closure. The incident showed the operational exposure of very large ships in narrow waterways, but that dollar range is an estimate of disrupted trade, not a measured loss to Evergreen.
Products and Services
Evergreen’s core service is containerized ocean freight: moving standard containers between ports on published liner rotations. Schedule search, booking, bill-of-lading processes, and container tracking are offered through ShipmentLink.
Equipment generally includes dry containers in 20-foot, 40-foot, and 40-foot high-cube sizes, plus specialized units:
- Refrigerated containers (reefers): insulated containers with mechanical cooling for perishable and other temperature-controlled cargo. Setpoint, ventilation, and related handling instructions are part of the booking, not automatic features of every reefer move.
- Special equipment: open-top containers and flat racks for out-of-gauge or heavy cargo that will not fit a standard closed container. Acceptance depends on the ship, route, and terminal.
Shippers must meet terminal cut-offs and the International Maritime Organization’s verified gross mass rules, which require a certified packed-container weight before loading. Bills of lading or sea waybills, commercial documents, and export clearance remain the shipper’s or forwarder’s responsibility unless a separate service agreement says otherwise.
Role in Logistics and Supply Chains
Evergreen provides the ocean leg connecting exporters, importers, forwarders, terminals, and inland carriers. A typical move is origin drayage to a container terminal, ocean carriage, discharge, and then rail or truck to an inland point. The ocean carrier does not, by itself, control factory pickup, customs clearance, or warehouse receiving.
Capacity is counted in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Evergreen’s A-class ships have nominal capacities around 24,000 TEU; individual ships are rated slightly below or slightly above that figure depending on the published specification. Larger ships can lower fuel use per slot on a full voyage, but they need deep water, suitable cranes, and enough yard space, and they concentrate delay risk when a canal, port, or schedule fails.
Tracking on ShipmentLink reports carrier and terminal milestones such as gate-in, vessel departure, transshipment, and discharge. Those events do not show inland delivery, warehouse inventory, or customs outcomes beyond what the carrier has recorded.
Industries and Cargo
Evergreen carries containerized goods for many industries, including electronics, apparel, automotive parts, retail merchandise, industrial products, and agricultural cargo, subject to equipment, route, and acceptance rules. Dry boxes suit general cargo; reefers are used where temperature control is required and booked.
Dangerous goods must comply with the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code and with the carrier’s own booking restrictions. Hazard class, packaging, placarding, segregation, and documentation have to be declared, and the carrier may refuse a booking.
Documented Limitations
- Schedules are not delivery guarantees. Weather, canals, port congestion, labor disruption, and omitted calls can delay or cancel sailings. The 2021 Suez blockage is a documented example of how one ship casualty can cascade into wider delays; it is not evidence that every Evergreen sailing faces the same risk.
- Demurrage and detention are commercial charges. Demurrage generally applies when a loaded container stays in the terminal beyond free time; detention generally applies when carrier equipment is kept outside the terminal beyond the allowance. In the United States, the Federal Maritime Commission’s demurrage and detention guidance addresses billing practices and reasonableness. Free time and rates still depend on the tariff or contract.
- Fuel and emissions rules affect cost and operations. The IMO’s 2020 sulfur limit caps fuel sulfur at 0.50% m/m outside emission control areas, unless an approved exhaust-gas cleaning system is used. Separate IMO greenhouse-gas measures, including EEXI and the Carbon Intensity Indicator, push operators toward slower speeds and more efficient ships. Evergreen, like other large carriers, has ordered alternative-fuel-capable tonnage; that investment should not be described as caused solely by one regulation, and bunker adjustment factors remain a commercial pass-through rather than a fixed public rate.
This article does not rank Evergreen against other carriers, state current fleet size or market share, or describe customer contracts. Those figures change and should be taken from a dated company report or an independent fleet census.