July stands to be a record month for box ship deliveries

JULY is fast shaping up to become a bumper month for containership deliveries, says Paris-based maritime consultancy Alphaliner.

More than 200,000 TEU in new capacity is expected before August month, highest level of monthly deliveries on record with the first two weeks of July producing 17 cellular ships.


Among them are five 10,000-TEU plus ships. With scrapping activity falling off, the full year growth in containerships is expected to add 9.6 per cent to the global fleet. This follows the 5.6 per cent growth for 2009, the lowest in 10 years.


Among the larger deliveries this month was the 13,793-TEU MSC Bettina and the same-size MSC Irene, the 11th and 12th ship of a total of twenty-six 14,000 TEU vessels from Samsung and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME). The latest additions that follow the MSC Melatilde delivered in June.


The two new ships will join the Far East-North Europe Lion Service, replacing the 9,580-TEU MSC Pina and the 9,200-TEU Pamela, which cascade down to the Dragon and Tiger services respectively.



The 13,092-TEU Ruby Rickmers will join Maersk after being delivered to Rickmers Group. It is the second of eight post-panamax ships in the 13,092-TEU range ordered mid-2007 from Hyundai Heavy Industries.


All these ships have been chartered by Maersk long-term with the Ruby sailing under the new name Maersk Emden to join the CMA CGM-Maersk`s joint Far East-Europe loop (FAL 5/AE-8). The Ruby follows the Pearl Rickmers, which has since become the Maersk Edinburgh, after it was delivered last week, said Alphaliner.


The 8,750-TEU Sofia Express has been delivered to Hapag-Lloyd from Hyundai Heavy Industries. This is the eighth of a second batch of fourteen 8,750 TEU ships to be delivered to the shipping line in 2010 and 2011 and will join the Grand Alliance Europe-FE-US-pendulum (Loop B/NWX).


The Sofia Express follows the Frankfurt Express, delivered in April. Hapag-Lloyd already received a first batch of eight similar units from HHI between 2005 and 2008.