The fully cellular containership fleet has grown from 4.5m TEU at the turn of the century to 16.1m TEU at the start of October 2012. However, this rapid growth has produced a number of supply imbalances, not least owing to the dramatic expansion of the 8,000+ TEU (VLCS) fleet. Overall containership fleet capacity has expanded by 260% so far this century. However, this growth has not been evenly spread across the size sectors. In January 2000 there were only ten VLCSs in the fleet, comprising less than 0.1m TEU. At the start of October 2012 there were 454 VLCSs on the water, with a combined capacity of 4.5m TEU. In addition, 218 VLCSs are still on the orderbook, with a total capacity of a further 2.5m TEU. In comparison, the sub-3,000 TEU fleet has grown by just(!) 66% in capacity over the same period, and has in fact been shrinking since March 2009.
Charter owners accounted for 37% of fleet capacity in January 2000, a proportion that rose for a decade, before stabilizing at the current 50:50 split between operators and charter owners. However, vessel ownership is also unevenly distributed across size sectors. Operators currently own over 62% of the VLCS fleet, and as they are responsible for 74% of the VLCS capacity on order, this disparity will only increase, at least in the short-term.
Shrinking OrderbookThe containership orderbook peaked at 6.8m TEU in July 2008 – then equal to a hefty 60% of the total boxship fleet on the water. Indeed, the orderbook remained above 45% of the fleet from April 2004 until June 2009, as displayed on the Graph of the Month. However, the depressed earnings environment following the onset of the financial crisis has largely curtailed contracting. Despite a surge of ordering in 1H 2011, the order-book has since fallen to 3.5m TEU, equivalent to 22% of fleet capacity.
Between January 2000 and 2011, the share of orderbook capacity contra-cted by charter owners fluctuated between 42% and 62%. However, the charter owner share subsequently fell to a low of 33% in June 2012, as many traditional sources of finance have dried up, affecting charter owners disproportionately, with the collapse of ordering from the German KG system the largest factor.
Supply MismatchThe current delivery schedule suggests fleet growth is likely to slow significantly from 2014, with just 1.4m TEU scheduled to be delivered after next year. However, this growth will continue to be heavily concentrated in the larger sizes - 73% of current orderbook capacity is on vessels over 8,000 TEU. The sub-3,000 TEU orderbook has fallen to historically low levels - less than 0.2m TEU - equivalent to just 4.7% of fleet capacity in this size range. As such, although there are a number of emerging supply imbalances, the dominance of VLCSs in the pattern of fleet growth may prove the most significant in the medium-term.
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