World's container shipping giants trigger shipbuilding boom

A CONTAINERSHIP building boom is underway as container shipping giants Maersk, Evergreen and CMA CGM place orders for up to 44 newbuilds valued at US$5 billion, reports Rotterdam's Offshore Energy.

Evergreen has emerged as the biggest spender with a reported order of twenty-four 16,000 TEUers. According to Intermodal, the order has been spread between Samsung Heavy Industries, South Korea, and Japan's Nihon Shipyard, with deliveries spread between 2026 and 2027. The Taiwanese shipping firm is said to be paying $4 billion for the newbuilds. When approached for a confirmation, Evergreen did not want to comment.

But Maersk announced that it has ordered six mid-sized container vessels from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, and that the 9,000-TEUer will have dual-fuel engines able to operate on green methanol and bunker fuel oil with delivery set for in 2026 and 2027.  Maersk also has options for four additional vessels of the same size under the terms of the contract. The order is valued at around $1.4 billion.

Notably, while Evergreen and Maersk have committed to methanol as fuel, French shipping giant CMA CGM favours liquefied natural gas (LNG).

CMA CGM has been linked to an order for ten 24,000-TEUers, Shipbroker reports indicate that Jiangsu Yangzijiang, China, has been assigned the job and that the vessels will be delivered in 2026.

Containership deliveries hit record high of 285,000 TEU in June

A RECORD 285,000 TEU of new containership capacity was delivered in June, as a result of the orderbook boom of 2021-22, according to Paris-based container consultancy Alphaliner.

This was actually lower than the 400,000 TEU Alphaliner predicted due to a labour shortages in Asian yards and deliveries being pushed back due to the sluggish cargo market.  To put the volumes of new deliveries in perspective the 285,000 TEU in June was just shy of the world's 12th largest container line Pacific International Lines (PIL) entire fleet that stands at 297,133 TEU, or higher than the typical quarterly delivery volume from 2019 - 2022. 

Accounting for over one-third of the newbuild deliveries in June was the world's largest container line MSC adding some 111,474 TEU of capacity. MSC, which is growing rapidly with both newbuildings and secondhand ships, now has a fleet of 5.13 million TEU putting it 985,000 TEU ahead of its nearest rival Maersk at the start of July.

There were deliveries of five megamax boxships in the 24,000 TEU range - two for MSC, and one each for OOCL, Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express.

The record volume of containership deliveries seen in June looks set to continue in the coming months as the orderbook stands at 7.6 million TEU, some 28 per cent of the current fleet on the water.

Source : HKSG