“At the end of 2024, the container ship orderbook was 8.3m TEU, a new record compared with the previous high of 7.8m TEU in early 2023,” pointed out Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO, who wrote the following analysis.
As 4.4 million TEUs were contracted during 2024, the second highest ever, the orderbook grew despite deliveries hitting a new record high of 2.9 million TEUs.
Making up 92% of the orderbook capacity, ships of 8,000 TEUs or larger dominate the orderbook. The largest segment, 12,000-17,000 TEUs, makes up 46% of the orderbook capacity, according to Rasmussen.
Shipyards in China have benefitted the most from the last four years’ contracting boom and currently hold 72% of the orderbook’s 8.3 million TEUs while South Korean and Japanese shipyards hold 22% and 5% respectively.
Liner operators control 79% of the orderbook capacity, significantly higher than the 61% they control of the fleet capacity. Having already increased from 56% at the beginning of 2019, liner operators’ share of fleet capacity is therefore set to continue growing in the coming years.
Though five ships have already been contracted for delivery in 2030, 99% of the orderbook will be delivered during 2025-2029. According to the current delivery schedule, 700,000 TEUs will be delivered in 2029 while an average of 1.9 million TEUs will be delivered during 2025-2028, peaking at 2.2 million TEUs in 2027.
As the recycling of ships during the past four years has been limited to 166 ships and 256,000 TEUs, the average age of the fleet has increased by 1.4 years since the beginning of 2020. Consequently, the number of ships 20 years old or older has risen, and they now make up 3.4 million TEUs equal to 11% of the fleet.
If all ships 20 years old or older are recycled during the next five years, the fleet will grow to 35.8 million TEUs by the end of 2029, assuming no more ships are contracted for delivery before 2030. That is equal to 16% growth or average annual growth of 3%. The segments smaller than 8,000 TEUs would see an average annual contraction of 4% while the segments of 8,000 TEUs or larger would grow on average by 7% per year.
“It would require 680,000 TEUs per year to recycle all ships 20 years old or older during the next five years (the current annual record is 657,000 TEUs) but actual recycling is likely to end lower. As long as ships cannot fully return to the Red Sea, recycling will likely continue to be low and at the same time, the smaller ship segments tend to be recycled later than average. Therefore, average annual fleet growth during the next five years could end higher than 3%,” commented Rasmussen.
The post Container ship orderbook hits new record high appeared first on Container News.
Container ship orderbook hits new record high
