138 ships idle, rising 2pc to 289,000 TEU as peak passes

THE idle containership fleet grew two per cent to 138 ships, or 289,000 TEU, compared to 132 ships of 243,000 TEU, two weeks ago, reported the Paris-based consultancy Alphaliner.

Four recently idled ships are above 7,500 TEU, the first of that size to fall into unemployment as the annual slack season began.

To avoid lay-ups, Cosco assigned its surplus 8,500-TEU newbuilding, the COSCO Thailand, to the South China Express, a Far East-US west coast string it operates with Hanjin, linking Fuzhou, Nansha, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Yantian, Xiamen, Long Beach and Oakland, as an additional ship.

This inclusion stretches the rotation by from 35 to 42 days through the application of extra slow steaming. The transit time is extended westbound, extra slow steaming from Oakland to Nansha on the west side of the Pearl north of Shenzhen.

APL will deploy its surplus ships to a new China-Indonesia loop mid-November, prompted by higher China volumes to ASEAN, making them the largest containerships to call at Indonesian ports.

APL's China Indonesia Service (CIS) will link Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Shenzhen-Chiwan, Singapore, Jakarta, Surabaya, Jakarta, Singapore, Laem Chabang and back to Shanghai.

CIS will include four ships in the 2,400 to 3,500 TEU range, the APL Sydney, APL Minneapolis, the APL Bangkok and the APL Pusan with the first sailing of the APL Sydney from Shanghai on November 15.

Three of the four ships have been reassigned from the Far East-US west coast loops where they were sent as peak season loaders.

CIS service complements the Korea China Straits (KCS) service launched by APL in July 2009, and links the Pearl River Delta and Jakarta. The KCS calls at Busan, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Nansha, Shenzhen-Chiwan, Port Kelang, Singapore, Jakarta, Singapore, Kaohsiung, Taipei, Lianyungang and back to Busan deploying four ships in the 2,400 to 3,500 TEU range. These ships are the largest vessels to call at the Indonesian ports.

The new CIS service encompasses APL's Singapore-Jakarta-Surabaya feeder loop and serves also the Thailand market on the northbound leg to China.

Fifty-six per cent of the Far East-US west coast services have adopted extra slow steaming, and this is expected to grow as more ships become idle, said Alphaliner.

But even with full adoption of extra slow steaming, additional transpacific capacity limits will only be able to absorb 110,000 TEU, not enough to utilise what tonnage will become available in coming months, said the report.

Source: SchedNet