Container line Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is shifting the world's biggest boxship to the US following cancelled sailings in Asia.
It had already moved two 19,000-plus teu vessels into transpacific trades and is now redeploying two of its "megamax-24" units.
The first of these, the 23,756-teu MSC Mia (built 2001) is joining the transpacific leg of its North Europe-Far East-US west coast service, operated with 2M partner Maersk.
Alphaliner said it believes these ad-hoc deployments are "motivated by the carrier’s need to address equipment shortages in North America."
While the east-west trade imbalance normally sees empty containers re-positioned on the back-haul from Europe and North America (and other destinations) to the Far East, the situation has currently reversed.
Cancelled sailings unprecedented
"An unprecedented number of cancelled sailings from China to Europe and the Americas, prompted by the Chinese New Year Holidays and the coronavirus outbreak in China, has left in particular Europe and the US short of container equipment," Alphaliner added.
"Since front-haul cargo volumes have collapsed and only relatively few containers from China arrive in Europe and America with cargo, there is currently not enough container equipment to accommodate European and American export cargo."
In a fortnight, the ship will be followed by the marginally smaller MSC Nela, whose planned trip from the Far East to North Europe on the AE-2/Swan loop was blanked, again because of poor bookings due to the wider fallout of the pandemic, subsequent factory closures and the shut-down of many productions lines in Asia, Alphaliner reported.
Compared to the 13,000-plus teu ships normally trading on the 2M transpacific services, the megamaxes will allow the line to carry a typical service load and at least an additional 6,000 teu of empty containers to the US.
Boxes being moved
One 19,000-teu MSC ship's draft was reported at 12 metres in Los Angeles recently.
This roughly corresponds to a two-thirds load in terms of commercial deadweight, Alphaliner said.
"While the draft capacity was not maxed out, the ship’s enormous slot capacity was however likely used to position empty equipment from the China to the USA," it added.
"Similar to the Pacific, a comparable situation persists in the Europe to Asia trade, where the availability of empty boxes in Europe has become very tight. Eastbound rates have increased significantly due to the scarce availability of vessel capacity for European exports to Asia and the introduction of peak season surcharges by some carriers."
The container imbalance is however expected to be short-lived as Chinese exports are picking up again, the analyst believes.
"Volumes might even peak in April, as European and US importers will sooner or later have to replenish their stocks of products 'made in China'," it added.
MSC's Samsung Heavy Industries-built units will remain the world’s largest containerships until April, when Hyundai Merchant Marine is scheduled to receive the 23,964-teu HMM Algeciras.
