Extraordinary container charter fixtures are filtering in that are unprecedented in the near 70-year history of containerisation.
Broking reports show New York-listed Danaos Corporation has fixed two of its ships for four-year stints starting in the first quarter of next year. The 2006-built, 8,204 teu Belita has been taken for four years by CMA CGM at $48,000 a day, while the 2005-built, 8,214 teu Charleston has been fixed to Pacific International Lines’ for four years at $47,500 a day. The Charleston is currently on charter to Regional Container Line at $30,000 a day.
Amid a very hot market with tight tonnage options, liners are now accepting tonnage for 2022 to 2026 with rumours suggesting liners are even trying to hire ships out to Q2 next year.
“On the supply front, the continued shortage of tonnage across all sizes shows no sign of easing with charterers increasingly forced to fix tonnage on a forward basis, sometime as far as 2022,” the most recent weekly report from Alphaliner stated, adding: “On the demand side, carriers’ appetite for tonnage remains high and is unlikely to fall in the medium term, with an extraordinary trading environment on the cargo front seeing record volumes and continuously rising container freight rates on most routes.”
Hamburg’s New ConTex boxship charter index is up 317.3% year-on-year.
“With the lack of prompt tonnage, operators are moving to secure forward tonnage in all size segments on a more regular basis, thus there seems to be no sign of any softening for the rest of the year,” the creators of the Contex index noted on Friday.
The prolonged charter rally has not seen stock prices for tonnage providers leap in tandem of late, something picked up by J Mintzmyer, the founder of Value Investor’s Edge.
“Virtually all containership stocks have traded sideways or down since mid-March despite the Harpex and New ConTex indexes up by around 50% and several hundred fixtures already being signed at these higher levels. We are now starting to see tonnage fixed as early as for Q1 2022 delivery with periods of four to five years. If containership stocks catch back up to fundamentals, we see 50-100% upside across these names,” Mintzmyer told Splash.
