The latest trend of branch container ship construction market

By Cai Jingwei & Sun Chao & Liu Ersen

In recent years, the completion volume of branch container ship has increased. Under the influence of new ship orders, the amount of new branch container ship completed reached a record high in 2008, and it shrank in 2009. In 2010 to 2014, due to the continuous consumption of handheld orders and the continuous shrinking of new ship orders, the amount of new branch container ship completed is decreasing. In 2016, the completion scale of branch container ship in the world once declined. In 2017, the completion scale of this type of ship increased again, with delivery of 74 new vessels of 123,000 TEU in total.

The energy saving and environmental protection ship has become hot in recent years. Seen from the recent transaction situation, ships which are energy efficient,environment-friendly, economic, and can meet the special needs of the shipowners have become the hotspots of the market. Shipyards in Germany, Poland and Japan and other countries once dominated the global branch container ship construction market. According to statistics,at present, more than 300 shipyards around the world have performance of building small container ships, and 74 of them have built more than 10 such ships.

Shipyards in Germany, Poland and Japan have a high share in the construction market of branch container ships in the last century. After that, with the shipbuilding industry continuing to transfer to Asia, the market share of South Korean and Chinese shipbuilding enterprises in this field is gradually increasing. As of the end of December 2017,among the top 20 branch container ships shipyards in the world, there are 5 in Germany, 2 in Poland and 3 in Japan;China mainland has 6 shipyards including Whampoa Wenchong Shipyard, Zhejiang sail, Jiangsu Yangzi River,Zhejiang uhh, Fujian Mawei shipyard and Jinling shipyard,all of them have a performance of more than 50 vessels.

Considering from the updated demand, at the end of December 2017, the total number of global branch container fleet below 3000TEU is 2893, 3.943 million TEU in total, of which 517 vessels of 486,000 TEU in total are 21 years old and above. Under the current shipping market conditions, the average age of the container ship dismantled is about 22 years old. In the next few years, it will be diff i cult to change greatly the situation of relative surplus of the shipping market, and a large number of old and branch container ships will be sent to dismantling.

In general, in the next few years, the demand for the branch container ships in the world shipping market is mainly from the updated demand. It is expected that from 2018 to 2020 the annual demand of branch container ships in the world will be about 180. In terms of ship type, the main ship type on deal in recent years are 1000/1100TEU, 1700/1800TEU,2200/2300TEU and 2700/2800TEU. In the next few years,it’s expected that these would be the main types on deal in the branch container ship market below 3000TEU.