This week, container ship ordering information was dominated by the order by Hyundai Service provider Marine (HMM) for eight 13,400 TEU container ships.
In a newly launched report, the Worldwide Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) notes that the container fleet is growing old. As of August 2025, the typical fleet age of the highest 10 delivery strains is comparatively mature at round 13 years outdated, though there may be variation amongst the totally different delivery corporations. Evergreen and HMM at the moment function the youngest fleet with a median age of 9 years, while MSC (16 years) and Maersk (14 years) present a heavier reliance on older vessels.
“This implies that there’ll quickly be a big pool of ships nearing the top of their aggressive lifespan. In consequence, as soon as the Crimson Sea scenario eases, it’s unlikely that each one this capability will translate into a rise in out there capability.”
That is confirmed by knowledge on scrappage between 2023 and 2025. Scrapping has been minimal in recent times, accounting for simply 0.38% of the fleet in 2023, and solely 0.02% in 2025 yr up to now. “This implies that older, much less environment friendly vessels are at the moment in use, given the additional demand created by diversion routes. As soon as the Crimson Sea scenario stabilizes and diversion necessities diminish, it’s probably that many of those vessels might now not be wanted or commercially viable.”
An finish to the Crimson Sea scenario is in sight, however not sure. This week, Maersk mentioned it had no particular timeline for when it will resume sailings by means of the Crimson Sea for its Gemini community with Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd.
Fleet renewal prospects differ within the container feeder market. Whereas there have been some orders – Intermodal studies Hapag-Lloyd has positioned orders for a collection of as much as 24 feeders – MSI predicts a brief fall within the geared container fleet.
“Whereas the containership orderbook has surged to over 33% of the overall fleet, subsequent to none of those vessels are geared ships. This might develop into an issue within the years to return because the geared fleet ages – 37% of geared containerships are over 20 Yrs outdated.”
The variety of ports solely served by geared container ships is declining, however the decline could also be slowing, says MSI, and the overall variety of calls at geared-only ports is steady. Whole calls at geared-only ports rose by 9% yoy in 2024 and the 2025 determine is predicted to be related.
The autumn in geared-only ports is largely right down to a fall within the variety of geared-only ports in Africa as terminals modernize. Nonetheless, the Pacific Islands and South East Asia have seen no change within the variety of geared-only ports since 2022, whereas the variety of such ports in Europe rose by one over this era.
Many of those ports, which embody Arctic and Polynesian ports, are prone to be too distant to justify main upgrades anytime quickly. Which means that an additional discount within the variety of geared-only ports could also be tougher to return by and can present area for renewed ordering of geared container ships to interchange the present fleet, or lack of market share to multipurpose vessels.
Source link
