THE Alliance staying behind in boxship race
THE Alliance is sliding further behind its two rivals when it comes to deploying megamax boxships, with latest data showing it will have around 60% less 18,000+ teu boxships compared to 2M and the Ocean Alliance, even with the addition of new member HMM next April.
Last week, Splash reported Evergreen, which along with Cosco, OOCL, APL and CMA CGM make up the Ocean Alliance, had become the latest line to order megamaxes, coming in for ten 23,000 teu ships to be built in South Korea and China. This order takes the Ocean Alliance’s 18,000+ teu fleet close to parity to 2M, the Maersk, MSC partnership, with 61 and 62 such ships, respectively, according to Alphaliner data.
By contrast, THE Alliance, including HMM, Hapag-Lloyd, Yang Ming, and Ocean Network Express (ONE), will only have 24 megamaxes come April next year when the Korean carrier comes onboard.
The contracts revealed last week mean Taiwan’s Evergreen now has the largest boxship orderbook in the world, nudging close to 600,000 slots.