A new report out by Dynamar on the reefer trades looks at how the world’s largest reefer operator, Seatrade Chartering, is shifting its fleet to containers.
In July last year, Dutch-owned Seatrade ordered four 2,200 teu boxships from the Chinese Zhejian Yangfan yard plus options on four more identical ones. Meanwhile these orders have been upped by two firm and two optional ones, all forming part of Seatrade’s 2020 fleet renewal program. This will ultimately, by the end of this decade, add 20 such container vessels to its current fleet, currently consisting of 86 conventional units of which the largest 54 are ranging between 450,000 and 650,000 cft.
The new Seatrade vessels will be full-reefer-capacity units.
“Seatrade’s 2020 fleet will ultimately replace most if not all of its largest conventional vessels, therewith heralding (the start of) a factual shift of the world’s largest conventional reefer operator to the container segment,” Dynamar reported, asking who else will follow.
“[I]f Seatrade’s shift to the box is adopted by other operators, scrapping will accelerate and the numbers will look different in ten years from now,” Dynamar posited.
