Analysts at Alphaliner are warning the deluge of new boxship capacity still to hit the water this year could harm liner fortunes.
In its latest weekly report, Alphaliner stated there are still some 900,000 teu of new vessel capacity scheduled for delivery from May through to the end of the year.
“The substantial newbuilding backlog continues to exert pressure on the container shipping market,” Alphaliner stated.
Total ship deliveries remain on track to reach 1.4m teu in 2018, with 560,000 slots already delivered.
Overall, Alphaliner anticipates fleet growth to remain above 6% in 2018, aided by the slow pace of containership scrapping, with only 24,000 teu broken up so far this year.
“[O]verall vessel supply continuing to keep ahead of the current buoyant demand. So far this year, vessel scrapping only reached 13 ships for 24,700 teu and there is little incentive to offload further vessels in the coming months,” Alphaliner reported.
No need for expensive Alphaliner or Drewry studies to learn what farmers logic will tell every sailor – this is bound to go wrong.