Next year, 2012, promises to be a record-breaker for deliveries of new containerships, predicts one of the world’s largest chartering and shipbroking companies.
Braemar Seascope’s latest Containership Fleet Statistics says boxship deliveries in 2012 are expected to reach 1.55 million 20-foot-equivalent units, beating the previous record of 1.52 million TEUs achieved during 2007.
Braemar Seascope expects a cellular fleet expansion of about 9.5 percent for 2012, increasing the available capacity to 16.8 million TEUs.
Of the 230 ships due for delivery next year, 59 have a nominal container capacity of 10,000 TEUs or more, which will introduce an additional 0.8 million TEUs to this segment, it said.
Fleet growth for the 10,000 TEU-plus size bracket is expected to reach 70 percent year-on-year for 2011 and a further 57 percent in 2012. Since most ultra-large containerships are currently deployed on Asia-Europe services, next year’s delivery influx would be sufficient tonnage to create another five loops deploying ten 13,000-TEU vessels, Braemar Seascope said.
It added that for vessels up to and including 5,100 TEUs of capacity, it is a very different story: the lower level of investment in newbuilding projects is apparent as growth is expected to reach only 2.9 percent this year before hitting 3 percent in 2012.
Since January 2010, owners have ordered 1.7 million TEUs of capacity of boxships with a capacity of 5,100 TEUs or more compared with 0.4 million TEUs of ships below 5,100 TEUs. Containerships of 10,000 s or more comprise 49 percent of the global orderbook by capacity, whereas containerships up to 5,100 TEUs represent only 20 percent of the global orderbook.
Since shipowners in Gernany’s KG investment market have largely left the newbuilding arena, investment in smaller containerships has been lackluster.
However, Braemar expects renewed interested in feedermax tonnage once the current cycle of investment in post-Panamax ships has waned.
