Speaking to the press after the announcement of the first quarter’s financial results, Maersk’s CEO Vincent Clerc expressed his concern about the upcoming fleet of new ships amidst weak demands. The head of the second-largest container carrier in the world said: “We don’t need as much tonnage right now to move the same volumes.”

Many newbuilds are anticipated to enter the market in 2023 and 2024, at a time when demand is expected to remain relatively weak. British investment bank Barclays forecasts the global fleet to grow by 11% in 2023. By 2025, the capacity could be 30% higher than the capacity before the pandemic.

Danish shipping news website Shipping Watch cited Clerc as saying: “The reason we are more concerned about overcapacity is that we are not in control of that. Other carriers, not us, are the ones waiting for a lot of new ships.”

Clerc believes the increase in the number of ships is “not acceptable in the long run if Ocean delivers red numbers. But some of the things we have to do to avoid that could take some time to implement,” adds Shipping Watch.

Maersk expects the current market situation to remain largely unchanged in the next three months. In an attempt to reduce costs, the company started slow steaming its ships and is likely to send some of its chartered vessels back to their owners as an alternative strategy. According to Clerc, Maersk estimates to save approximately $500 million every year by reducing the speed of its vessels.

However, the liner forecasts volumes to increase again in the second half of the year, “but also that overall capacity will keep on creating problems due to limited shipbreaking activity,” writes Shipping Watch.