By the end of 2018, around 30 vessels with an average capacity of 11,700 teu are planned to be replaced by larger newbuild tonnage on the Asia-Europe and transpacific tradelanes.
Bleak future
The vessel planner will face a critical task of finding new employment for these larger containerships, which could prove difficult due to port restrictions and frequency requirements on many smaller trades.
Furthermore, these carriers freight rate levels can be destroyed by an influx of extra slots on a hitherto well-balanced trade lane.
ClipperMaritime’s latest edition of Container Horizons sayid, “Operators are progressively faced with the issue to either upgrade existing services out of necessity, because it is a ‘best-fit’ scenario, or to deploy in trades that are showing genuine demand growth.”
Medium range vessels axed
Thirty ships have been earmarked for replacement, around which twenty have been operated by Ocean Alliance partners and five each by members of 2M and THE Alliance.
The average size of vessels plying the Asia-North Europe trade lane now stands at 14,824 teu, the largest being 21,413 teu. Some thirteen 18,000 teu and three 14,000 teu newbuilds are stemmed to enter the trade in the second half of this year, cascading-out ships in the 14,000-16,000 teu size range.
On the transpacific, the average size of the vessels deployed between Asia and the US west coast is still relatively small, at 7,762 teu, but the largest vessels now being deployed are around 14,000 teu. The average size of ships on Asia to US east coast services is similar, at 7,648 teu, with the largest ship currently 14,414 teu.
Japanese carrier takes centre stage
The much expected Japanese carrier ONE’s first newbuild, a 14,000 teu ‘ONE Stork’ is scheduled to be deployed on the EC4 loop of THE Alliance’s Asia to US east coast network, via the Suez Canal. The vessel was originally designed to be deployed between Asia and North Europe, evidencing the development in ship sizes since the vessel was ordered by NYK in 2015.
Small containerships in demand
Due to the cascading impact in the bigger sizes, at the other end of the scale, small containerships are in big demand as a consequence of several years of rampant scrapping and a dearth of new orders.
Did you subscribe for our daily newsletter?
It’s Free! Click here to Subscribe!
Source: The Loadstar
