Alphaliner’s annual count of the top-10 carriers’ reefer capacities shows that the ‘reefer ranking’ generally follows the overall size of the respective liner operators’ fleets. The only exception is ZimShipping, which is the world’s 10th largest carrier, but still occupies the 8th spot for reefers, ahead of HMM__official and Yang Ming.
As the world’s largest ocean carrier MSCCargo has some 651,000 slots for reefer containers across its fleet. Theoretically, if all of these were to be filled with 40-foot reefer boxes, the shipping line could use one fifth of its overall vessel capacity for the carriage of temperature-controlled cargo.
MSC’s 11.7% year-on-year increase in reefer plugs mirrors its 11.6% fleet capacity expansion over the past twelve months. For most carriers, the y-o-y increase in reefer capacity is in line with overall fleet growth.
