NAFS SHIPPING MAGAZINE - ARTICLES
Containerships challenges: Growth and size limits By Athanasios Reisopoulos , Member of BoD of Box Ships Inc 1. INTRODUCTION
Modern containerships are highly complex floating systems that, for the past 50 years, have been trimmed for high performance in terms of safety and availability. Their development is still far from over. Container shipping is being driven by world trade in a way no other transport system is, and unlike any other system it is in itself a powerful motor to trade. Asia’s economy boom could not have been handled without container shipping. The increase of containership size seems to be an endless process without any foreseeable limit. Over the past 40 years any estimated limit turned out to be an underestimation in a very short time. The economies of scale remain a crucial factor in increasing the containers capacity and sizes. The bigger the ship, the lower the transport costs. The introduction of Very Large Container Vessels (VLCVs) and Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) changes shipping patterns and requires port expansions and port adjustments. Even in the present situation with a historic volume of oversupply of container tonnage, we are still facing a flood of newbuildings of sizes, which have been never seen before.
2. INCREASE IN SIZE AND CAPACITY OF CONTAINER SHIPS OVER THE YEARS
The growth of containerization over the past half century has been exponential. Container ships have been getting bigger because the increased size affects positively their operating efficiency, profitability and friendlier environmental performance (Figure 1). One criterion for Athanasios dividing container vessels in particular categories is, if they can be accommodated by the Panama Canal. Here we have the following categories: Panamax CVs (3,000-5,000 TEU), Post-PanaReisopoulos, max CVs (5,001-10,000 TEU) and New-Panamax CVs (10,001-14,500 TEU). Member of BoD of Box In literature two terms are often used for the largest ‘’mega-ships’’ in the world: Very Large Container Vessels (VLCVs) and Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs). As there is no commonly Ships Inc accepted definition of VLCVs and ULCVs, for the purpose of this paper we have assumed that vessels between 10,000-14,500 TEU are VLCVs (or New-Panamaxes). ULCVs are having a capacity of 14,501-21,000 TEU, an overall Length of max 400.0 m, and a max Beam of 50.0-60.0 m (Table 1). The fast growth in size of containerships has started in June 2011 with the ordering of twenty (20) new Class ‘’Triple E’’ containerships, of 18,270 TEU capacity each by Maersk shipping, the world’s largest containership. Maersk claimed that the ‘’Triple E’’ was the most environmentally friendly ship (the three E stand for economy of scale, efficiency and environmental friendliness). Putting more containers on a ship with less fuel consuming engines would definitely save costs and bring the liner in a much better position in a very competitive market. Designed to be only three meters longer and 3 meters wider than the 15,500 TEU Emma Maersk, it increased the carrying capacity by 16%. Triggered by Maersk decision to build the first set of Triple-E-Class ships and while it was believed that the Triple-E-Class ships would mark a record for a long period of time, more and more shipping companies have reacted by ordering larger container vessels (over 14,000 TEU), in order to increase their profitability and maintain or even strengthen their market position. Still in 2014China Shipping has put the ‘’CSCL Globe” of 19,000 TEU into service. “MSC Oscar’’ entered the Europe-Far East trade in early 2015 with 19,224TEU capacity being the world’s biggest containership by today. «MSC Oscar’’ was initially specified at 18,270 TEU but expanded during the building period, as one extra tier was added. (See Chapter 3).
Figure 1: Growth in size of containerships during the last 50 years.
14 NAFS DECEMBER 2016
In 2014, there was solid interest in the 14,000 TEU containerships, but the recent interest and ordering of new container ships of liners has been focusing on the 18,000 + TEU ships. Today, more than 100 vessels of this size, or even higher, are on order or in operation (Table 2).