The number of container ships registered as commercially inactive was reduced once again in the last fortnight, despite the continued weakness of rates and the persistent addition of new capacity to the market.
As of November 17, it was reported that 0.8% of the total container fleet had no commercial activity, equivalent to 87 vessels with a capacity of 273,058 TEU, according to Alphaliner.
This represents a slight decrease from the 94 ships with 298,538 TEU from two weeks ago, when the inactive fleet “reached a temporary peak of 0.9%”, the consultancy noted.
“At these levels, vessel inactivity is essentially an irrelevant factor in the industry and the traditional year-end slowdown appears to have had little impact on the fleet,” it added.
The main factor behind the latest drop was the return to service of two post-panamax units, leaving only two inactive ships in this segment.
A single megamax remains inactive. “However, the temporary unemployment of this megamax appears to be purely operational following its previous stay at the shipyard for conversion and upgrade,” Alphaliner noted.
Non-operating owners slightly increased their inactive tonnage in the period and currently account for 38% of the total idle capacity.
The total number of ships at the shipyard also grew slightly, to 166 vessels with 857,981 TEU, equivalent to 2.6% of the total fleet, up from 2.4% in early November.
Regarding the delivery schedule, the total cellular container ship fleet surpassed 33 MTEU for the first time in the last fortnight. More than 2.3 MTEU of new capacity has been added in the last twelve months.
