After a multi-year lull in container ship newbuilding orders that ended in mid-2020; shippers and owners embark on an unprecedented wave of orders, the remaining months of 2022 will only see a fairly modest amount of new tonnage delivered, Alphaliner reports.
According to Alphaliner, this situation will not change before 2023, when the first ships of the wave of recent orders are scheduled to be delivered. Over the course of this year, container ship deliveries are expected to remain below 100,000 TEUs for most months, with an annual total of about 1.20 MTEUs.
However, the quarantine generated by the most recent COVID outbreak in and around Shanghai will further delay the entry into service of several container ships. This mainly refers to ships under construction at shipyards in the Shanghai metropolitan area, where the giant shipbuilding centers on Changxing Island and in Pudong have been located within the blockade zone, adds statistical consultancy Maritima.
Recent Alphaliner research shows, for example, that Evergreen Marine has postponed the planned addition of its new 24,004 TEU vessels EVER ALOT and EVER APEX from April and May to mid-June. The two megamax sister ships are currently being outfitted at CSSC’s Hundong Zhonghua and Jiangnan shipyards.
Another operator that could be affected is CMA CGM. The French shipping line will soon take delivery of another 15,254 TEU LNG-powered neopanamax from CSSC Jiangnan. So far, however, it remains to be seen whether the ships can be finished as agreed.
Shanghai is currently experiencing the worst Corona outbreak since the pandemic began and authorities have implemented a zero-tolerance approach to curb transmission of the virus. This included closures, curfews and other measures that seriously affected industrial production in the region, reports Alphaliner.
