The turmoil at both ends of the Suez and Panama passage have forced containerships to divert from their regular routes, as ships linked to Israeli interests are avoiding the Red Sea passage through the Suez Canal even as some of the neo-panamax ships on the Far East-US East routes are shifting to the Suez route to avoid the congested Panama Canal. While these moves will help to absorb some of the surplus ships, the impact is limited at this stage as it affects less than 2% of the overall fleet.
Carriers have made no headway in controlling surplus capacity, in sharp contrast to the same period last year when the idled fleet rose sharply through November. This time, idled capacity peaked at only 400,000 teu in October but has dropped to just 187,000 teu currently with most of the capacity withdrawn returning after brief intermissions. Even the rise in ships in drydock in October has started to reverse, with the total capacity in drydock falling to 800,000 teu after its recent peak. Chi
Market sentiment has turned positive for the first time since August, with momentum building for the November freight rate hikes as further capacity cuts are forthcoming after THE Alliance decided belatedly to suspend the EC4 service to the US East Coast via the Suez in November. This follows earlier cuts made by various carriers on the USWC and Europe routes that have helped to elevate carriers rate restoration efforts. The SCFI recorded its 2nd successive weekly increase, led by gains on the M
The idle fleet increased slightly to 53 ships for 166,936 teu as at 1 October 2023, and will increase further over the coming week as the blank sailing programs to be implemented in October will leave some ships without employment albeit only temporarily. The 23,656 teu MSC MINA has been idle since 24 September and is currently without assignment through October, with MSC also sending more ships for scrubber retrofits over the past week. However, the idled fleet is not expected to match the sha
Global containership capacity is growing at an average rate of over 190,000 teu a month since April, after accounting for new ship deliveries and capacity upgrades and deducting scrapped capacity and other deletions. This pace of growth is the fastest rate ever recorded for the container markets and is set to continue for the next 2 years. Compared to the growth spurt in 2006-2008 and 2014-2015, when the average monthly growth rate was just 120,000 teu per month, the current growth burst will
The torrent of new containership deliveries has started with #MSC setting new ship size records twice last week, with more ULCS units to come in the weeks ahead. MSC has widened its gap against Maersk to 587,000 teu with the divergence even greater if idled capacity is taken into account. #Maersk has 298,000 teu currently idled compared to just 68,000 teu from MSC, with the burden of idling excess capacity unevenly shared by the carriers. The idle containership fleet currently stand at 738,014
The active fleet has started to creep upwards and is now at their highest levels since 2020, reaching 17.7m teu on lower idling and drydocking positions as well as easing congestion in North America and Europe. The pick up in vessel scrapping has hardly made a dent on the overall supply of ships as it is limited to smaller ships. The delivery schedule for new ships is picking up as well, with over 2.5m teu of new capacity scheduled in 2023. The idle containership fleet continued to fall, with
Active fleet steady in past week. More ships entered yards for retrofits, after 2-year delay on the extraordinary earning up cycle.