Giants join idle boxship fleet

Eight large ships are said to have joined the ranks of the idle containership fleet raising numbers to 286 ships of 750,000-teu.

The eight ships are the 10,114-teu Hanjin Germany (built 2011), the10,062-teu Zim Djibouti and the Zim Antwerp (both built 2009), the 9,040-teu Honolulu Bridge (built 2012), the 9,012-teu NYK Virgo (built 2007), the 8,468-teu CSCL America (built 2004), the 8,440-teu Zim San Diego (built 2010) and the 8,110-teu MOL Cosmos (built 2008)

The ships have been left unemployed due to service withdrawals for the winter period or the delayed launch of new services in the spring, says Alphaliner

But it adds that these ships are not believed to be in lay-up and are expected to be activated within the next two to three months.

Seven of the ships are anchored in Chinese waters, with six at shanghai and a seventh at Ningbo. The eighth ship is awaiting orders in UK waters.

The idle fleet has now grown ten-fold since June 2011 when it reached a low of 75,000-teu, according to Alphaliner.

“The sharp rise is induced by sluggish transportation demand and surplus capacity on all key trade lanes,” it says.

Non-operating owners’ (NOO) share of idle capacity makes 186 ships, or 65%, of 286 listed as idle by Alphaliner.

NOO tonnage is more prevalent in the smaller sizes, making up over 85% of the ships between 500-teu and 3,000-teu that are idle.

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