Tag: containerships

Rates halve in Q3 amid fears of new recession The container shipping market may remain bleak for the rest of the year, after seeing shipping rates halved in the third quarter, an expert warnedSunny Ho, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Shippers' Council, said part of the reason rates had crashed was that western buyers were tightening their purse strings amid growing fears of global recession.Ho said: "We can't see any major factors that can help stimulate US economic recovery - and Europe's situation is even worse."The emerging markets have grown faster than the European and US markets, but they are unable to make up for the weak demand in traditional markets of Europe and the US."The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SFCI) for European routes tumbled 56% to an average of $807.86 per teu in Q3 from $1,842.67 in the same period last year.Average container shipping rates from Shanghai to the US west coast fell 40% year on year to $1,639.93.The SFCI serves as a barometer for global trade as it tracks the rates of shipping companies that mainly moves manufactured goods such as shoes, clothes and furniture from the world's factory of China to consumers in western countries.Shares of ...

Investment firm to buy as many as 50 containerships Maritime investment firm Tiger Group could "very easily" buy as many as 50 large containerships in the next two years, betting that the box ship industry will see the most growth in traditional freight markets, the firm's managing director said.The Hong Kong-based firm, with assets of more than $10 billion, looks to raise as much as $6 billion to invest in shipping over the next few years through its companies, said Tiger Group's Managing Director Julian Proctor. The investment firm, a major shareholder in New York-listed Seaspan (SSW.N) and six other maritime firms, is mainly targeting opportunities in the box ship industry.It does not see much growth in the near term for the oil tanker or dry bulk sectors, which are both struggling with an oversupply of vessels and rock-bottom freight rates."Across the various businesses that we have, we could very easily be ordering 30 to 50 ships over the next 24 months," Julian Proctor, Tiger Group's managing director, told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference in Singapore. "We think there is good value in large containerships of the right type and right technology. That same proposition is not ...

Canada leads the world in creating such measures, speakers say The global container shipping industry lags behind many other industries in establishing a set of key performance indicators to measure elements that are critical to shipping customers.But Canada leads the world in setting transportation measures, such as on-time reliability, terminal productivity, and dwell times, according to speakers on a panel during the opening day of The Journal of Commerce's 6th Annual Canada Maritime Conference in Montreal.The biggest problem in setting KPIs for global supply chains is the lack of common performance standards and common measurements of performance, said Kuba Szymanski, secretary general of InterManager, which is investing $10 million in developing a KIP grid for shipowners."Shippers are more concerned about port performance than costs," said Mary Brooks of Dalhousie University. "Ports talk about their productivity but it's a bit like kids in a playground, saying 'I'm better than you are,' because there are no common measurements of productivity." She said ports' performance indicators need to be vetted by third-party sources to validate their claims or shippers will not accept them.The KPI panelists praised the newly announced Daily Maersk service, which will set up a daily Asia-Europe container shipping service with ...

The global container fleet continues to expand in both vessel size and capacity According to shipping industry analyst Alphaliner, as of the middle of August, 133 new containerships had been delivered into service this year, bringing the global containership fleet to over 4,900 vessels, representing 15 million teu of capacity.Alphaliner says another 659 boxships, representing another 4.5 million teu, are still awaiting delivery. Halfdan Ross, MD of Crane & Engineering Services in Shanghai, said: "The vessels themselves are just one factor in the global shipping industry."Without the proper equipment - that is, cranes - the productivity potential of the expensive new larger vessels cannot be properly utilised, and those larger ships cost nearly $200 million each so the need to make every minute count is compelling".The introduction of ultra-large containerships, of over 10,000teu capacity, is changing the economics of the industry and putting new pressure on terminals to be able to not only provide deep-enough draught, but also tall-enough cranes with sufficient reach to span these up to 23-container-wide giants.Vessels of 10,000teu and above account for nearly a quarter of all ships awaiting delivery, with 159 currently on order.Another 111 vessels of 7,500-9,999teu will also be delivered over the next ...

New equipment and expertise are needed As the global container fleet continues to expand in both vessel size and overall capacity the need for specialized equipment and expertise grows as well, as port facilities move to update cranes and procedures to accommodate the bigger ships and greater productivity requirements.According to shipping industry analysts Alphaliner, as of the middle of August, 133 new containerships had been delivered entered into service in 2011, bringing the global containership fleet to over 4,900 vessels, representing 15 million TEUs of capacity. Another 659 container vessels, representing another 4.5 million TEUs, are yet awaiting delivery."The vessels themselves are just one factor in the global shipping industry" observed Halfdan Ross, Managing Director of Crane & Engineering Services in Shanghai, noting that "without the proper equipment - that is cranes - the productivity potential of the expensive new larger vessels cannot be properly utilized - and those larger ships cost nearly $200 million each so the need to make every minute count is compelling".The introduction of Ultra-Large Container Ships of over 10,000 TEU capacity is changing the economics of the industry, and putting new pressure on terminals to be able to not only provide deep enough draft, but ...

Engine Room Tour on a Container Ship

Long journey onboard 350 meters long container carrier

New era of price discovery and risk management solutions The World Container Index, the first Europe-based assessment of container freight rates, has gone live on schedule (on September 1, 2011), ushering in a new era of price discovery and risk management solutions in the container freight market.The first published World Container Index freight rates show increases on some, but not all, major routes. The spot container freight rate index on the Shanghai-Genoa route was $2,270 per 40ft container this week, up 8% on the assessment made in the first week of August. On the Shanghai-New York route, this week's spot rate is $3,477 per 40ft container, up 11% on the assessment made in the first week of August. The WCI rate indices for the backhaul routes from Europe and the US to China have remained stable in the past month.Full launch of the World Container Index follows a long period of development, capped by several weeks of external testing with selected shippers, lines and forwarders.Data is gathered from actual transactions reported by panellists in the US, Europe and Asia, representing a cross-section of users in the container freight market. WCI has already sold subscriptions to the weekly index and will ...

The vessel is 337 metres long Pinky Zungu, one of the first black African women marine pilots to obtain an "open licence", has piloted the biggest-ever containership to sail in South African waters. She piloted the MSC Chicago when it arrived in Durban's container terminal on 29 August. The vessel is 337 metres long, with a beam of 46 metres and a draught (depth) of 13.1 metres.The chief executive of the Transnet National Ports Authority, Tau Morwe, said Ms Zungu's role in the MSC Chicago's maiden voyage: "Points to the successes of our efforts to bring about gender and racial equality and transformation in the maritime environment."Source: ITF

Weak demand growth in the European and US economies The container shipping industry is heading towards a prolonged slump that could last longer than the 2009 downturn, warns Shipping Gazette, quoting Paris-based maritime consultancy Alphaliner.The current slump, unlike the 2009 recession, is caused by an oversupply of capacity and weak demand growth in the European and US economies. In the absence of a strong rebound of the Western economies, trade growth is expected to remain behind fleet growth for quite some time, it is said. The lull in containership orders between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2010 brought the order book down from 60 per cent to 26 per cent of the fleet, but the strong recovery in 2010 led many shipping to add to capacity hoping a sustained recovery for the industry.This triggered a new wave of containership orders and the 2.3 million TEU of capacity contracted since June 2010. Some industry sources continue to underestimate the impact of the excess supply problem, citing supply growth figures of 7 per cent for 2011 and 2012 and a capacity shortage in 2013 but the report emphases that the growth rate for 2011 and 2012 will ...