Lars Jensen, chief executive officer of the Danish maritime research firm SeaIntel, said his firm expects 48 super-post-Panamax vessels to enter Asia-Europe trade in 2013, and for some existing vessels in that trade to cascade into the transpacific.
"If the carriers maintain the current service pattern, and neither launch nor remove any services, it leads to a situation where the capacity on Asia-Europe will have increased 11 percent in fourth quarter 2013 versus same period 2012. The significant increase is partly a result of the injection of large vessels, and partly a result of the carriers extensive blanking of sailings in Q4 2012," Jensen said.
"Presently it appears highly unlikely we see a surge from Asia to Europe," he added. "We would thus expect carriers to remove significant capacity from the Asia-Europe trade throughout 2013. This would be done as a combination of service closures, service re-arrangements and blanked sailings. In the absence of such capacity reductions, freight rates will be placed under significant pressure."
Jensen said, as a result of the new ships being added to the Asia-Europe trade, "48 slightly 'smaller' vessels will indeed be moved to trades such as transpac as well as Asia-Middle East in 2013."
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