The idle fleet increased slightly to 53 ships for 166,936 teu as at 1 October 2023, and will increase further over the coming week as the blank sailing programs to be implemented in October will leave some ships without employment albeit only temporarily. The 23,656 teu MSC MINA has been idle since 24 September and is currently without assignment through October, with MSC also sending more ships for scrubber retrofits over the past week. However, the idled fleet is not expected to match the sha
With the number of idle ships starting to rise and fresh demand failing to match the rapid build up of the surplus fleet, charter rates are increasingly under pressure across all size segments. There remains limited activity in the larger sizes, but demand is also similarly muted with most of the main carriers’ requirements this year already fully covered. The most notable fixture was PIL’s charter for 4 units of 7,000 teu from TSL and RCL for delivery in 2024. The recent delivery of the 8,000
MSC has extended its lead at the top of the carrier rankings, with its current fleet reaching 5.36m teu, up from 4.61m teu at the beginning of January. Newbuilding deliveries contributed 557,000 teu to the increase, with the rest coming from second hand vessel acquisitions and new charters. MSC has grown at an average rate of 83,000 teu a month, with its lead over 2nd place Maersk rising to 1.24m teu. Maersk has seen its operated fleet shrink from 4.21m teu at the beginning of the year to 4.12
Total containership capacity waiting at anchorages edged up slightly at the end of last week to 1.61m teu or 5.8% of the global fleet with a slight build up of ships in China with the start of the Golden Week holidays. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has reduced the number of vessel passage from 32 per day currently to 31 from 1 November 2023. The current restriction are already reduced from the normal limit of 36 transits per day have been imposed since 30 July 2023. These restrictions have n
The SCFI assessment on the Transpacific shed a further 3.4% last week to the West Coast but it is the East Coast where carriers are facing greater pressure with rates dropping by 5.4%. Spot rates are available in the market at up to $300/feu lower than the SCFI rates, with carriers unable to fill the capacity available despite a 13% drop in average capacity in October on the West Coast and 23% drop in the East Coast. Rates to North Europe have cracked below the 2019 levels and appears to be in
The Vietnam Gulf India/RCL Gulf Asean/Vietnam Gulf Express/Saigon Gulf Service (VGI/RGA/VGX/SGS) service jointly operated by ESL, KMTC, RCL, CU Lines and Global Feeder Shipping will be upgraded from the 2,500 teu scale to 5,500 teu starting from September 2023, with CMA CGM joining as the 6th partner in the service who brands it as the Vietnam Gulf India (VGI) service. The service was first launched in January 2022 using up to 5 ships of 2,000-2,700 teu and called initially at Ho Chi Minh City,
Boluda Lines and Samskip have jointly launched a new Spain-Ireland-UK service connecting Santander, Dublin, Liverpool, Santander using the 803 teu LUCIA B from 29 September 2023. The service turns in 1 week using a single ship from Boluda, with Samskip taking slots. In northern Spain, the service will call at Boluda Maritime Terminals Santander that was opened by Boluda in April 2023 at a total cost of €40 m with a capacity of 110,000 teu a year.
Trading in China ended on Thursday last week as markets in China closed from 29 Sep to 8 Oct for national holidays. Prices of the CoFIF came down between 12% and 20% WoW, benchmarking the physical market where spot rates for FE-NEUR are plummeting as players are entering into the bidding season for the 2024 contracts. SCFI was just below $600/TEU at market close last week but actual going spot rates could be already much lower. Average daily trading volume last week rebounded by 1.5 times back
CNC (CMA CGM) will add a new call at Dalian on its Korea China Southeast Asia (KCS) service from 30 September 2023, with the revised rotation calling at Xingang, Dalian, Lianyungang, Qingdao, Singapore, Jakarta, Surabaya, Manila, Xingang. The service turns in 35 days using 5 ships of 4,000-6,000 teu with KMTC, ONE and SITC taking slots.
Akkon has extended its Far East-Med service with a new call at Qingdao from 21 September 2023 to serve the North China market. The revised Far East service will call at Qingdo, Taicang, Ningbo, Nansha, Mundra, Aliaga, Gemlik, Gebze, Ambarli, Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Qingdao on a fortnightly frequency using 4 ships of 1,700-1,900 teu. The Akkon Far East service was first launched in October 2022 and marked the first time that Akkon has ventured outside of its core Med services. Akkon Lines was est