Skyrocketing rates and demand for capacity is set to make 2021 a record year for containership sale-and-purchase deals.
Data from Clarksons Research shows that over 300 vessels of more than 1m teu have been sold to late August.
Sales are less than 100,000 teu behind 2017, the most active year on record, with four more months to go.
At the current rate, more than 6% of the boxship fleet capacity could change hands in 2021, analyst Thomas Betts said.
Three record quarters
The three most recently completed quarters have been the most active in terms of teu capacity.
Since the start of the fourth quarter last year, investment in secondhand containerships has topped $8.9bn, Clarksons Research said.
This marks a sharp turnaround from the second three months of 2020, when volumes slipped to their lowest levels in over a decade as a result of major uncertainty following the initial impacts of Covid-19.
But liner operators have since been struggling to find ships for charter as trade rebounded and port congestion increased.
Ships stuck in port
Betts calculated that about 32% of the containership fleet was in port in the first half of 2021, compared to an average of nearly 30% between 2015 and 2019.
"This has led several operators into the S&P market to secure tonnage, with secondhand options looking attractive," the analyst said.
Fearnley Securities said congestion has "seemingly become the modus operandi" at western ports in 2021.
A record 47 ships are waiting outside Long Beach and Los Angeles, including seven large neo-panamaxes, the investment bank said.
Tonnage tightness continuing
"After the first peak in January at around 40 ships, the situation eased back into the summer (albeit not entirely removed at 10 to 15 ships), before continuing to build from July to the current situation," analysts Peder Nicolai Jarlsby, Erik Gabriel Hovi and Ulrik Mannhart added.
News of dry bulk owners entering the container trade with capesize ships, which are seeing earnings of $50,000 per day, further points to the current market tightness in the container space, they argued.
Record freight markets have also provided a "heavy incentive" for operators to maximise deployed capacity, Betts said.
And a sharp rise in asset values has lured owners into selling ships to secure returns on investment, Clarksons Research argued.
The trend has been for tonnage operators to acquire vessels from lessors. This accounts for at least 60% of capacity sold in 2021, Betts said.
The figure compares to an average of 35% in 2018 and 2019.
Approaching 10-year highs
Clarksons Research's secondhand price index rose 160% between October 2020 and late August this year, close to a 10-year high.
The company assesses a 10-year-old, 4,500-teu panamax ship at $60m now, compared with $10.5m in October.
A similar 1,700-teu feedership has seen its value rocket 400% to $30m.
"Rising values have seen the total value of the boxship fleet almost double in the year to date to $247bn," Betts said.
"Containership markets have performed spectacularly well so far in 2021 and the secondhand market has been no exception."
