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Period rates for container vessels keep scraping along the bottom with the market post Chinese New Year still lacking the necessary traction to absorb a good amount of today’s surplus tonnage
Charter demand for larger gearless container ships remains lacklustre as liner operators are struggling with a significant overhang of owned[ds_preview], leased and chartered tonnage that has sent freight rates on most routes into steep decline again. Spot rates as measured by the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI) hit new lows again, thwarting appetite for additional capacity from non-operating owners, while uncertainty over the next reshuffle of liner alliances doesn’t seem to work in favour of long-term charter decisions either.

Although sporadic fixtures and extensions of post-panamax and super-post-panamax vessels keep popping up, rates are more or less unchanged in a corridor between 6,000$ per day for 5,500/6,500TEU and low $8,000’s for 8,000TEU vessels. Although this should be the busiest time for post-panamax fixing ahead of the traditional peak season in deepsea container traffic, prospects seem to have turned more sour lately with further service suspensions and mergers on the Far East/North Europe and Far East/Mediterranean routes. Measures announced by carriers of the CKYHE and Ocean 3 alliances are likely to release numerous units of 7,000 to 8,500TEU.

The picture in the segments from panamax down to 2,500TEU sub-panamax size looks rather disturbing as well. Fixing levels oscillate around the 6,000$ mark and only high-reefer panamax units, wide-beam over-panamax units, certain popular gearless 2,800TEU’s (Thyssen, Aker designs) and 2,500TEU eco-designs are achieving noteworthy premiums beyond operating cost levels.

By contrast, sentiment in the smaller segments below 2,000TEU continues to be more positive, with especially feeder tonnage around 1,000TEU and smaller in scarce supply in the north continent/Baltic region and also in the Mediterranean, according to brokers. Generally, market conditions for feeder vessels remain firmer in the Atlantic and Mediterranean than in Asia. This is also the case for the geared 1,700TEU class.
Michael Hollmann