Build new ships, buy second-hand ships, and charter ships. These three shipping companies stand out in the battle for capacity.

Recently, shipping companies such as HMM and Wanhai Shipping have successively announced the order to build new ships. The current largest buyer in the second-hand ship market, Mediterranean Shipping MSC, has purchased a new batch of second-hand ships...
According to a new analysis by shipping consulting agency Alphaliner, MSC, Wanhai and Yixing are the big winners in the battle for shipping capacity so far in 2021 and benefit from the special market conditions in the first half of this year. Maersk is getting closer and closer to losing the top position of the world's largest container shipping company.
Specifically, in terms of acquiring new ships in the second-hand market, Wan Hai and MSC have proven to be the most successful, while Yixing was able to sign a new ship lease agreement.
In contrast to the three competitors mentioned above, Maersk has only recently begun to expand its fleet by increasing chartered vessels. This means that the container shipping company's fleet growth in the first six months of this year was only 0.5%.
"This means that the 2M partner MSC will continue to narrow the gap and is expected to become the new boss of the liner shipping industry." The analysis company wrote.
 

In the same period last year, the situation was completely opposite.

At that time, the new crown pneumonia epidemic was raging, causing demand to drop to a minimum, and major container shipping companies were busy cutting capacity. At that time, only the Korean shipping company HMM was expanding its fleet.

Alphaliner wrote: “In particular, HMM’s fleet grew by 42% in the first half of last year, and with the 8 x 24000 teu newbuildings to be delivered in the second half of next year, this Korean shipping company has to fill all these extras. Capacity seems to be an'impossible task'."

Now, one year later, as part of The Alliance, HMM has added 8 more ships of slightly more than 16,000 teu on the route from the Far East to Europe. However, the alliance still lacks ships to meet the needs of customers on the route, mainly due to extremely high demand and bottlenecks.

  
HMM and Evergreen Shipping are "lucky" and plan to receive a large number of new ships in the first half of this year
Shipyard receives LNG ship order
The fleet expansion did not end there. Recently HMM announced a new container ship order, with a special order for 12 new container ships, each with a capacity of 13,000 teu. The order value exceeds 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.

All 12 new ships will be designed to use liquefied natural gas and LNG for navigation, and scrubbers will also be installed to enable them to use traditional heavy fuels.

Last week, Hapag Lloyd, HMM’s The Alliance partner, added 6 new ultra-large container ships to its order book, currently including 12 new container ships of 23,500 teu, all of which are available. Use liquefied natural gas.

CMA CGM also has new orders
As early as March, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen made an assessment and said that the order volume in the container industry was too low.

At that time, the shipping company ordered new ships equivalent to 11% of the existing fleet. However, this number should be 15%, which means about 30% larger, Habben Jansen assessed at the time.

French shipping company CMA CGM also placed large-scale orders.

These include 6 13,000 teu LNG powered ships, another 6 15,000 teu LNG powered ships, and 10 5,500 teu small ships. With the new order for 22 container ships placed at the end of March, the French carrier’s order for a total of 44 ships The ship is under construction, Alphaliner wrote in April.

In addition, in mid-April, CMA CGM rented two 4300TEU ships at the price of 32,000 USD/day and 37,000 USD/day, with the lease terms of 2 years, 9 months and 2 years, respectively. In mid-March, CMA CGM also leased a 9288TEU ship with a lease term of 3 months. The rent at that time was 39,250 US dollars per day.