Most deliveries assigned to east-west lanes though megas ply USWC: Drewry

Time:2016-04-12 Browse:161 Author:RISINGSUN
MOST of last year`s deliveries of vessels of 4,000 TEU or more were assigned to east-west trades, according to London`s Drewry Maritime Research.

The average size of ship at work in Asia-North Europe increased by 16 per cent to 14,100 TEU since the start of 2015, said Drewry.

But today 18,000-TEUers have been introduced to the Asia-US/Canada route and the Asia-east coast South America trade.

Around 132,000 TEU of newbuild capacity has been added to the Asia-ECSA services in the past year, while the average vessel size growing by 19 per cent to 8,800 TEU.

Said Drewry: "Considering that headhaul demand growth in these two trades fell by 14.5 per cent and 3.4 per cent in 2015 respectively, that is an awkward position for carriers to be in.

"It goes a long way to explaining why each route has experienced a lot of void sailings as lines tried to minimise the supply and demand mismatch," said the analyst.

Drewry reported that 209 new vessels became operational in 2015, adding 1.7 million TEU to the global fleet`s capacity before any scrapping.

The average size of the newly-built ships was about 8,400 TEU and 55 per cent of all vessels delivered last year were ships over 10,000 TEU.