As the containershipping market
continues to drift through a prolonged downturn premised on overcapacity a
subdued world economy, BIMCO reports a glimmer of hope:
demolition of containerships almost tripled
in the first five months of 2016 in comparison to the same period of 2015. This
illustrates the efforts carried out by shipowners to counter the fundamental
imbalance between supply and demand under poor container shipping market
conditions. However, more needs to be done to lift the charter market.
The demolition of capacity in the panamax
segment (3-5,999 TEUs), since the start of January 2016 till the year to date,
has been especially significant. A total of 150,863 TEUs of panamax ships have
been demolished so far in 2016, this equals the number of the same type of ship
scrapped from June 2014 up to and including December 2015.
One possible explanation behind the higher
demolition in the panamax segment since January 2016 is their potential
redundancy – due to the opening of the new locks of the Panama Canal on 26 June
2016. This will soon allow neo-panamax containerships with a maximum beam of
49m to pass through. The new set of locks was inaugurated by COSCO Shipping
Panama a ship with a capacity of 9,443 TEUs. More and larger ships are set to
enter, as the new locks begin to operate with full capacity.
Chief Analyst Peter Sand says: “Throughout
2016 very poor market conditions stemming from excess supply has triggered
higher demolition activity. Given the stubborn growth of global demand,
increased scrapping is the way to diminish the gap between supply and demand in
the containership market. BIMCO is therefore raising its forecast for
containership demolition from 250,000 TEUs to 400,000 TEUs for the whole of
2016”.
Due to oversupply of container shipping
capacity and ongoing lack of global demand, time charter rates for the panamax
segment went down from the monthly average of $15,800 per day in March 2015 to
a monthly average of $5,755 per day in July 2016 (-63.5%).
Peter Sand adds: “As the global demand for
containerships in 2016 is not expected to grow at the pace needed to match
excess containership capacity, it is challenging for time charter rates to
improve. Going forward, multiple years of low fleet growth – in the form of demolition
and low contracting activity – will then improve the market.
The expansion of the Panama Canal backs up
the shift away from the segment of panamax ships which have a maximum beam of
32 metres, putting them in line for demolition”.
Source: marine
link. 1 July 2016
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