Global containership deliveries to reach 1.28 million TEU by 2012

GLOBAL deliveries of new containerships have surpassed one million TEU since the beginning of 2011 with 154 vessels delivered and 280,000 TEU more to come by the end of the year, says Alphaliner.

""Non-deliveries" due to cancellations, deferrals and slippage have fallen to 8.5 per cent, only twice their long-term historical levels, as the bulk of the delivery deferrals was negotiated in 2009 and 2010," the Paris-based maritime consultancy said in its weekly newspaper.


"2009 and 2010 were exceptional years as the financial crisis led owners and carriers to defer the deliveries of a significant part of the order book, as well as to cancel part of their orders. Such crisis-driven initiatives were not to be repeated in 2011. Cancellations have actually been marginal this year with no impact on deliveries scheduled for 2011," said the report.


Scrapping and conversions of older box ships since January 2011 have reached 65,000 TEU, with a further 15,000 TEU expected to leave the cellular fleet during the last three months of this year. As a result, the annual net growth rate of the containership fleet in 2011 is expected to reach 8.4 per cent, it said.


So far this year, 37 ships of more than 10,000 TEU have been delivered, accounting for 47 per cent of the total capacity delivered, and all of these vessels have joined the Asia-Europe trades, with this route absorbing 64 per cent of this year`s new capacity at 640,000 TEU, including smaller ships of 6,500 to 10,000 TEU.


The Asia-Europe trade lane now offers a total capacity of 236,000 TEU, or year-to-date growth of seven per cent. Larger ships have pushed out smaller ones, aggregating 400,000 TEU, a situation that is combined with depressed freight rates.


It noted that the Latin America trades have absorbed 169,000 TEU, or 17 per cent, of the vessel capacity delivered this year. Altogether, the trade has absorbed 250,000 TEU of additional capacity this year, including both new ships and vessels cascaded from other trades, mainly from the Asia-Europe and transpacific routes.


The Middle East trade has absorbed 50,000 TEU while intra-Asia routes account for 29,000 TEU.


Deliveries are expected to hit 1.4 million TEU and 1.8 million TEU, respectively, in 2012 and 2013, most capacity coming from ships larger than 7,500 TEU, the report said.