The Hindu Business Line : Demand uncontained

If the latest forecast by AXS-Alphaliner is any indication, an additional 4,00,000 TEUs of capacity will have to be added in the next one year on the Far East-Europe route to maintain the current growth rate of 16.5 per cent annually. In other words, an estimated 25 per cent of the volume to be delivered by the shipyards will be absorbed on the route.

The forecast is based on the capacity to be deployed in April-May 2007. There are 57 weekly full container loops on the Far East-Europe sector, offering a weekly capacity of 321,500 TEUs, or 16.7 million TEUs on annualised basis. Maersk, the Danish shipping giant and the world's largest container operator, provides the largest capacity, 52,155 TEUs a week, or 2.7 million TEUs annually, representing 20.7 per cent of the total capacity deployed on the sector.

Interestingly, the combined capacity of the shipping alliances active on the sector is less than that of the standalone operators. The top three standalone carriers such as Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM, together account for an estimated 42.5 per cent capacity against 37.5 per cent of the three alliances — CKYH (Cosco, K-Line, Yand Ming and Hanjin-Senator), Grand Alliance (Hapag Lloyd, NYK, OOCL and MISC) and New World Alliance (APL, MOL and Hyundai), taken together.

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