Probably yet another good sign…
Container ship deliveries to hit record in July
Deliveries of new containerships will hit a record monthly high of 200,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in July, extending a year long influx of capacity that may stall the recent rise in ocean freight rates, a leading analyst said.
The previous record was set in April 2008 when deliveries totaled 156,000 TEUs, according to Alphaliner, the Paris-based container shipping research consultancy. The surge in new vessels hitting the market in July follows on deliveries totaling 747,000 TEUs in the first half of the year. This will take deliveries for the first seven months to 950,000 TEUs, or 7.3% of the current fleet, according to figures released by Alphaliner.
The new deliveries include a number of ships which had already been completed in 2009, but were mothballed at shipyards. Alphaliner estimates deliveries will reach 1.45 million TEUs in 2010, with slippage and cancellations limited to only a small part of the container ship order book. This represents 11.1% of the world fleet at the beginning of January 2010. The record July deliveries will include at least eight vessels of over 10,000 TEUs, compared to only seven similar sized ships delivered in the first six months of the year.