Shipping: "Global Container Fleet Tops 23 Million TEU as New Megaships Hit the Water"

From gCaptain:

A wave of ULCV deliveries this year has pushed the total containership fleet capacity over the 23m teu mark, with the last million slots added in a breath–taking 14 months, according to an Alphaliner report.

However, the newbuilds, mostly consisting of ULCVs, have arrived at a time of softening demand growth across the major tradelanes of the world, which is already forcing carriers to blank a significant amount of headhaul voyages.

In fact on Monday the 2M partners, Maersk and MSC advised that the “temporary suspension” of their AE2 / Swan Asia – North Europe loop would commence one week earlier than planned, with the final schedule sailing from Qingdao on 25 September also being cancelled.

While the new ULCVs will in most cases immediately be deployed on the Asia – Europe tradelane the cascading impact of the incumbent tonnage being reassigned to secondary routes will have negative consequences on freight rates in those markets....

....MUCH MORE