Good news for containership owners comes from the lead article in the latest weekly report from analysts at Alphaliner, who have significantly revised upwards their full year global port throughput growth projections.
Citing “strong” volume growth recorded across key container ports in the first quarter of 2017 Alphaliner’s revised full year global port throughput growth is now set at 4.6%, compared to earlier projections of only 2%-3%. Moreover, Alphaliner said it could revise this figure higher still later in the year.
Alphaliner stated global container port throughput grew by 5.8% in the first quarter of 2017.
“If the current strong momentum is maintained in the coming months, the full-year figure may be adjusted further upwards and could surpass the 5.1% volume increase recorded in 2014,” Alphaliner reported.
The higher full-year forecast could see global throughput growth surpass containership capacity growth for the second straight year. However, boxship owners were warned that the supply overhang will still more time to clear, especially as the idled fleet has dramatically reduced in the past six months.
