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The 24,188 TEU capacity OOCL Spain pictured at the Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering (NACKS) shipyard in Nantong, China. Photo courtesy OOCL
Alphaliner reports a record month for containership newbuild deliveries in April, surpassing the previous record set in March.
A staggering 50 new ships were delivered in April, adding up to a remarkable 333,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of capacity, compared to the previous high of 41 new vessels and 260,000 TEUs delivered in March, according to Alphaliner.
Chinese shipyards led the surge in deliveries, with 37 ships representing 221,000 TEUs delivered in April. Korean yards followed closely with nine ships and 94,100 TEUs, while Japanese yards delivered four newbuildings representing 17,900 TEUs.
China’s COSCO Group led in terms of carriers, adding five ships representing 58,700 TEUs to its COSCO SHIPPING and OOCL brands. MSC closely followed with an addition of five ships and 58,600 TEUs.
Despite overcapacity concerns heading into 2024, Alphaliner notes that the liner shipping market has been able to effectively absorb the new capacity due to diversions via the Cape of Good Hope and additional slow-steaming from to stricter environmental regulations.
Alphaliner numbers showed previously that, as of January 1, 2024, the cellular container fleet stood at 5,977 ships with a capacity of 28.13 million TEUs following the delivery of 350 newbuilds and 2.3 million TEUs in 2023.
A separate analysis by BIMCO showed that in 2024, a whopping 478 containerships with a capacity of approximately 3.1 million TEUs are scheduled for delivery this year, increasing the the global fleet by 10%.