Containerships in Lay-Up at Highest Level in 18 Months

By Mike Wackett, The Loadstar

Some 90,000 teu of mobile capability was consigned to lay-up previously two weeks, taking redundant tonnage to its highest stage since March 2014, in line with liner delivery analysts Alphaliner.

Significantly, the checklist of 208 ships, or some 673,000 teu, consists of 4 containerships of 13,000 teu or over – two operated by MSC and one every by APL and UASC.

The 13,892 teu APL Temasek has been at anchor since 10 August, a casualty of blanked sailings and repair curtailments by the G6 alliance in response to weak demand from Europe for Asian imports.

And given the depressed state of the Asia-Europe commerce the short-term prospects of its reactivation, together with the 13,102 teu MSC Margrit, UASC’s 13,100 teu Tayma and the 13,000 teu MSC Flavia, seem bleak.

Container traces at the moment are reassessing winter slack season programmes – the G6 Alliance immediately stated it will mix its two Asia-US east coast companies for the interval, whereas its Asia-US west coast CC2 service can be suspended from week 44. Maersk Line stated lately it was taking a look at eradicating an additional two- 4 east-west strings within the closing quarter of the yr.

In many instances the 13,000 teu kind has turn out to be a second alternative vessel for the 4 deepsea alliances on the Asia-Europe commerce as members obtain extra 18,000 teu ships from shipyards. And with extra ultra-large 18,000 teu-plus ships stemmed for supply this yr, 2016 and 2017, it places the 13,000-teus at risk of turning into unemployable.

Alphaliner expects extra container vessels to hitch the unemployed fleet quickly.

“Weak demand across almost all tradelanes globally has taken a heavy toll on containership demand. On top of this, a constant stream of vessel deliveries continues to add to the supply side pressure.”

It stated that for the reason that starting of July round 480,000 teu of latest vessel capability had been added to the world fleet.

Drewry Maritime Advisors this week reported that the variety of containerships bought for scrapping this yr was working at lower than half the speed of 2014, with solely 47 vessels demolished within the first six months of 2015 in contrast with 107 on the identical stage the earlier yr.

Drewry expects scrapping to dwindle for the rest of the yr, placing the variety of demolished ships at its lowest since 2011. It stated this was partly on account of a spurt of latest intra-Asia companies in the beginning of the yr and the momentary change of some Asia-US west coast companies to the US east coast throughout strike-related disruption.

However, the principle barrier to ship demolition has been the plunge in scrap values brought on by a downturn in world demand for metal.

The ensuing oversupply of metal has been exacerbated by scrapping subsidies granted by the Chinese authorities to its state-owned delivery traces, forcing the value of its home metal all the way down to round half the value of a yr in the past and flooding the market with low-cost metal.

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