Slow steaming cuts down on fuel consumption
The world’s biggest container shipping company, Maersk Line, said on Monday it planned to expand its use of slow steaming on Asia-Europe routes and also to introduce it in the Pacific.
The statement by Maersk Line, a unit of Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk, follows its Feb. 17 announcement that it would remove 9 percent of its capacity from Asia-Europe trade lanes because overcapacity had knocked freight rates to unsustainably low levels.
Slow steaming, which means sailing at lower-than-normal speeds, cuts down on fuel consumption and tightens up the market by reducing available capacity as it takes longer for vessels to travel from port to port.
Source: Reuters