After increasing each year since 2011 to reach record levels in 2015, containership deliveries fell sharply in 2016, signaling a potentially new era of less robust fleet growth, according to Clarksons Research.
Last year, record levels of demolition and a dramatic slowdown in boxship deliveries held down fleet growth to just 1.2% to 900,000 TEUs from a record growth of 8.1% to 1.7 million TEUs in 2015.
This, said Clarksons in a new analysis, made the volume of containership capacity delivered in 2016 the lowest since 2004, representing a drop of 46% from record levels in 2015 to reduce the deliveries last year to a mere 127 vessels of 903,662 TEUs.
Deliveries in 2016 were concentrated in the larger sizes, with 89% of delivered capacity accounted for by the over 8,000-TEU sector, the highest level on record. However, delivered capacity in the 8,000- to 12,000-TEU sector declined 53% year-on-year, while deliveries in the more than 15,000-TEU sector dropped by 50%.
In the under 8,000-TEU sector, deliveries declined 52% year-on-year to just 102,536 TEUs in 2016, reflecting limited ordering in this size range in recent years, and overall in 2016 the less than 8,000-TEU fleet declined by 4.8% in terms of capacity.
The smaller volume of boxship capacity scheduled for delivery in 2016 was the primary factor in the slowdown in deliveries last year, said the report. At the start of 2015, the orderbook scheduled for delivery in 2016 totaled 1.1 million TEUs, a 44% decline from deliveries scheduled for 2015.
However, rising “non-delivery” of the scheduled start-year orderbook, from 11% in 2015 to 33% in 2016, also significantly impacted deliveries last year, with delays to deliveries to owners in the ongoing difficult market conditions. The level of “non-delivery” was particularly substantial in the 8,000- to 12,000-TEU sector, reaching 42% in 2016, compared to just 7% in 2015.
The report projects that deliveries in 2017 may accelerate from 2016 levels, boosted by the surge in “mega” boxship contracting in 2015. It further projects that deliveries in the over 15,000-TEU sector in 2017 to be fairly similar to 2015 levels, “which is likely to present continued challenges to operators managing capacity on the mainlanes.”
However, overall delivered capacity is projected to remain below the 2015 level, with very limited deliveries seen in the mid-size sectors. Deliveries into the smaller sectors are projected to rise year-on-year, although remaining at a historically subdued level. In 2018, total boxship deliveries are forecast to remain relatively steady year-on-year.
With the sluggish level of deliveries in 2016 and the moderating rate of growth in the boxship fleet, delivery trends could be signalling the start of a more languid period of growth in the boxship fleet, said Clarksons Research.
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