Seaintel: Asia-North Europe capacity outlook 2015
Seaintel Sunday Spotlight states that there will be a 6% capacity growth in the Asia-North Europe trade for 2015, due to the phase-in of new +10,000 teu tonnage.
The growth rate is based on the assumption that carriers will not cancel services or increase the use of blank sailings as a tool to control supply. However, if less capacity than was seen over the last year is blanked, it could rise by as much as 9.5% In Q4/2015 the growth in capacity, compared to Q4/2014, could be above 7.2%, unless the carriers take action to control the capacity increase. Moreover, it could be as high as 15% year-on-year if carriers stop blanking sailings.
In the last month of the current year and throughout 2015, 69 vessels with a capacity in excess of 10,000 teu are scheduled to be delivered to various carriers. CSCL’s new 19,000 teu ships will be the largest ones. According to Seaintel's analysis, it is expected that most of these vessels will be phased into the Asia-North Europe services next year. The newbuilds will replace smaller vessels, which again will replace even smaller tonnage on either Asia-Europe services or elsewhere.
