ANALYSTS at London's
Drewry Maritime Research say scrapping less than 6,000-TEUer has little
effect on easing the overcapacity plaguing the industry.
What must
happen, they say, is that younger and bigger ships must be scrapped to remove
capacity from the market as more to mega ships appear.
This year has
seen the rate of scrapping fall dramatically to 47 vessels for a combined 87,500
TEU, less than half of what was scrapped last year.
The number of
scrapped vessels this year is likely to be the lowest since 2011, equivalent 10
per cent of the newbuildings added to the fleet.
Today, the
global fleet is fast approaching the 20-million-TEU mark with the rapid
influx of mega ships.
Owners have
been reluctant to scrap older ships because prices are poor and there has been
some renewed demand for panamax ships.
This results
from new regional services in Asia, and diverting cargo away from congested US
west coast ports to avoid labour difficulties.
There are 40
ships above 4,000 TEU that are currently older than 20 years, meaning
that most scrapping candidates will be 2,000-TEU or less.
But panamaxes
will become prime candidates for scrapping after the expanded Panama Canal opens
to allow passage of 13,000-TEUers, reports Port Technology International.
If all ships
aged 20 years and above were demolished the global cellular fleet would shrink
by 750,000
TEU or four per cent.
But that
would not affect utilisation on the embattled Asia-Europe trades wouldn't budge
more than one per cent.
Drewry's view
is that scrapping will pick up slightly next year, but unless owners demolish
younger and bigger ships overcapacity is here to stay, along with weak freight
rates that squeeze profitability.
Source :
HKSG.
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