China Cosco Shipping, one of the world’s largest container carriers, has forecast a halt to the trend of ever-growing boxships because many ports are feeling the pressure from handling mega-ships operationally.
According to Chinese media 21st Century Business Herald, the state conglomerate’s executive vice-president Yu Zhenggang said there would be increasing concerns from industry players over the mega-ship trend seen over the past decade.
“The size of mainstream mega-ship has been enlarged to 21,000 teo to 18,000 teu, but this trend of ever-growing containership size has brought mega pressure to port operations,” Yu reportedly said in a keynote speech during the World Ports Conference.
“The mid- and small-sized ports are in particular feeling the pinch.”
In a drive to lower unit costs, major container lines have concentrated their newbuilding investments on ultra large container vessels (ULCVs) for much of the past decade.
According to Drewry, 26 containerships of 18,000 teu or larger were delivered in 2018, a record-high.
The mega-ship trend has drawn concerns about overcapacity and operational constraints at ports from many industry officials.
Maersk Line, the world’s largest container line that kick-started arm races for ULCVs earlier this decade, has ruled out any further orders for large boxships this year.
“With Maersk out of the arm race, we expect more shipping and port companies to publicly express their worries over megaships and work together to constrain the trend of enlarging boxships,” Yu said.
“This will have strong impact on the development of global port network.”
As of end-March, Cosco Shipping operated 487 containerships totalling 2.96 million teu, the third largest in the world.
It has invested in 51 box ports with a total handling capacity of 119 million teu, which ranks No 1 globally, according to the Cosco website.
Yu’s remarks come as Cosco Shipping still has three 13,500-teu vessels and two ships between 19,000 teu and 20,000 teu on its orderbook, based on Clarksons data.
TradeWinds reported Cosco Shipping Lines—the company’s container shipping arm—was talking to yards over 21,000-teu newbuilding projects as recently as March.
