Ocean carriers, non-operating owners, investment banks and lessors have gone ‘all in’ on container ship newbuildings in the first half of this year, signing well over 300 vessel orders at Chinese, Korean and Japanese yards.
These new ships will have a combined slot capacity of 2.88 Mteu, or 11.75% of today’s overall container fleet capacity of 24.47 Mteu.
Combined with a healthy number of newbuilding contracts signed in late ’20, the ’21 order ‘frenzy’ has taken a rather anemic container ship orderbook from a low point of 2.29 Mteu a year ago to 4.94 Mteu as per 30 June.
The overall orderbook to fleet ratio has more than doubled from 9.4% a year ago to 19.9% at the end of H1.
Source : Alphaliner
