[290119.EN.SEA] Top Box Carriers Pile On The Tonnage In 2019

MEDITERRANEAN Shipping Company (MSC) is due to take on board 334,550 TEU of newbuild tonnage this year, edging closer to 2M partner, Maersk Line, in the global capacity rankings.

According to Alphaliner, MSC has the largest newbuild pipeline of all shipping lines this year, with 20 vessels scheduled for delivery as part of its "ship-jumboisation" programme that will see a series of 14,000 TEU ships converted to raise their nominal capacity to at least 17,000 TEU, reported UK's The Loadstar.

Maersk Line, on the other hand, only has six ships slated for delivery, for a total of 73,600 TEU, noted Alphaliner.

Indeed, without Maersk's acquisition of Hamburg Sud and its fleet of 650,000 TEU, MSC would have been almost neck-and-neck with its top-ranked rival at the end of this year, with 3.6 million TEU of capacity.

MSC's delivery pipeline this year includes eight 23,000 TEU ships for delivery in the second half. Alphaliner said it expected some of these to be deployed on the extended rotations of the 2M's six Asia-Europe strings, while others were expected to cover for vessels taken out of service for six weeks in the second half for the retrofitting of scrubber systems, ahead of IMO 2020.

The carriers with the next largest 2019 capacity expansion plans are Ocean Alliance partners Cosco and Evergreen, with newbuild pipelines of 181,000 TEU and 134,000 TEU, respectively.

"Cosco will continue its relentless growth in 2019, fresh from last year's acquisition of OOCL," said Alphaliner.

With this capacity injection, the Chinese state-owned carrier will widen the gap on the remaining alliance partner, CMA CGM, currently in fourth place in the rankings.

Evergreen's 2019 newbuilds will see the Taiwanese carrier narrow the capacity gap to its closest rivals, THE Alliance partners Hapag-Lloyd and Japanese grouping ONE.

Hapag-Lloyd has a blank orderbook, while ONE, which continues to consolidate its business after a problematic merger launch last April, has just three ships on order.

The only newbuild capacity growth in THE Alliance this year will be for Yang Ming, which is expecting four 14,200 TEU ships.

Source : HKSG.