The impact of the Red Sea crisis on containership deployment trends – after a wave of ‘cascading’ rapidly accelerated supply growth last year – is brought home to the market in a new report by shipbreaking firm Clarksons, reports The Loadstar.
Tradelane
Smaller vessels ’cascaded’ from Asia-Europe lanes have been returned back to the tradelane, with the share of Asia-Europe deployment of ships smaller than 17,000 teu rising 11% year on year, to 42%, last month.
In comparison, the regression in freight rates in 2023 coincided with multiple newbuilding deliveries, following the heavy ordering during the Covid-induced boom.
As 2.3m teu of ships entered service last year, equating to 8% capacity growth, supply pressure was most acute in the larger sizes – 850,000 teu of 12,000-17,000 teu vessels hit the water, an 18% expansion in capacity in this size range.
Deployment increasing
Deployment of 12,000-17,000 teu ships has also been increasing on other routes, including Far East–South America, these ships rising from 19% to 37% between January 2023 and December 2023, though this share levelled off at 39% last month.
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Source: Theloadstar
