by Manal Barakat, SeaNewsEditor
Analysts had anticipated a significant downturn in the container shipping industry due to overcapacity. However, this downturn has not yet occurred, largely due to various market disruptions and reactions.
Despite the rapid delivery of new vessels, the market has remained stable. The global container shipping fleet is expected to see substantial growth.
Looking ahead, potential disruptions such as tensions in the Taiwan Strait, crises in the Middle East, and US port strikes could impact the market in 2025.
Overcapacity may lead to reduced service levels, with practices like skipping sailings and cancelling services becoming more common.
However, despite a high fleet-to-orderbook ratio and ongoing newbuilding activity, Danish carrier Maersk believes that carriers have sufficient tools to handle the influx of new ships.
Carriers can resort to several measures, which include slow steaming, scrapping older vessels, and returning ships to tonnage providers.
Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which forced ships to reroute around Africa, led to longer shipping times and a shortage of containers. At one point, experts feared that the challenge would cause a capacity crunch in the shipping market.
For next year, analysts expect the global capacity to expand.
Analyst Darron Wadey at Dynamar says that “despite new vessels being delivered at an unprecedented rate in 2023 and into 2024, what still remains on the orderbook is of such a magnitude that capacity can do nothing else than expand.”
