Shipyard deliveries ease off as scrap yards boom

JULY was the slowest month for containership deliveries for the 10 years AXS Alphaliner has been tracking them, the Paris-based consultancy said in its weekly newsletter.

The fleet has almost stopped growing in recent weeks as ships heading for the scrap yards nearly surpass new tonnage coming from the shipyards. "Over July, the total container capacity deployed on liner services increased 7,000 TEU - the worst month-to-month figure recorded since we started to track the global liner fleet growth 10 years ago," Alphaliner said.

While the cellular fleet increased 20,000 TEU in July, with 15 new ships totalling 73,600 TEU, this was offset by cellular tonnage going for scrap, 34 ships totalling 54,000 TEU.

Also, multipurpose tonnage quit container trades either to be redeployed as tramps or to be scrapped, said Alphaliner. "The cellular orderbook has fallen to a level corresponding to 41 per cent of the existing fleet and stands now at 5.26 million TEU," according to Alphaliner figures, the lowest TEU level in two years.
"We have to go back to January 2004 to find a 41 per cent ratio. Not a single containership was ordered during the past 10 months, an unprecedented situation," the newsletter said.

The cellular fleet now stands at 4,690 ships of 12.82 million TEU, of which 10.3 per cent laid up. The fleet is expected to grow by 9.8 per cent during 2009, based on current figures before scrapping.

Net growth is likely to be less than nine per cent if expected scrapping is included for what remains of the year, said the consultancy report.

The scrapping of containerships for the year to date will hit 250,000 TEU in the first week of August, with full year scrapping level expected to surpass 350,000 TEU.

(Source: www.schednet.com)