MSC dominates the industry with record-breaking 124-ship orderbook

Swiss-based container shipping giant MSC has the largest orderbook by far in the industry with 124 containerships on order.

Namely, MSC has 14 megamax ships and 22 neo-panamax ships on order scheduled for delivery in 2023, according to Alphaliner. The orders are spread between Chinese and South Korean shipbuilding majors.

Even if some deliveries will be delayed to 2024, the Geneva-based carrier is certain to receive another major capacity boost this year. Overall, the company is set to bolster its fleet with 1.73 million TEU with newly built tonnage, data from Alphaliner shows.

The company’s shipbuilding program is progressing well, as we have reported recently. Two weeks ago, Chinese shipbuilder Guangzhou Shipbuilding International (GSI) launched a 16,000 TEU LNG-ready ULCVs being built for MSC, named MSC Noa Ariela.

The boxship will feature air lubrication, a shaft generator, and a hybrid exhaust gas cleaning system (scrubber).

It is the first of eight 16,000 TEU containerships GSI is building for MSC. The ships were ordered back in 2021 in several separate deals for up to 17 LNG-ready Neo Panamax vessels, split between GSI and Dalian Shipbuilding Industry.

MSC was once again the most expansionist among the big shipping lines last year, building upon its massive fleet capacity increase from 2021.

According to Alphaliner, after having increased its fleet capacity by a 411,000 TEU slots (+10.7%) in 2021, MSC added another 321,500 TEU (+7.5%) last year.

“MSC’s impressive growth was mainly due to the shipping line’s continued acquisition of second-hand tonnage, which allowed it to become the world’s largest container carrier on 5 January 2022, when it overtook Maersk. The Geneva-based carrier‘only’ received 83,600 TEU of capacity from newbuildings,” Alphaliner said.

Almost one year later, MSC’s fleet capacity is already some 379,000 TEU bigger than that of its Danish 2M partner. Maersk lost 61,700 TEU of capacity during 2022 as the company had to re-deliver a significant amount of chartered tonnage.

MSC is exploring retrofitting projects involving various types of fuels including LNG and methanol for its existing fleet.

The two solutions remain the key options for owners that want to act today on lowering their emissions as the technology is readily available and the bunkering infrastructure is in place.

Maersk, on the other hand, has opted out of LNG as marine fuel for its newbuilds and is pioneering the use of methanol.

Danish liner major has 19 green methanol vessels with dual-fuel engines on order, which are at the center of the company’s plans to meet its net-zero emissions target by 2040.

 These include six vessels with a nominal capacity of 17,000 TEU ordered last October, twelve 16,000 TEU boxships and one feeder ordered in 2021. The dual-fuel vessels will be capable of burning methanol as well as conventional low sulphur fuel.

The feeder is expected to join Maersk’s fleet in 2023 while the first newbuild from the 16,000 TEU batch is slated for delivery in 2024. The construction of the 16,200 TEU ships was launched at Hyundai Heavy in December 2022. The six 17,000 TEU vessels are all to be delivered in 2025 and will sail under the flag of Denmark.

Switching gears, ZIM has been particularly active on the charter market since ending its cooperation with the 2M partners on the Asia – Med and Asia – WCNA routes as it needed some extra tonnage to maintain a strong presence in these trades.

Percentage-wise, the Haifa-based shipping line was the fastest-growing carrier in the top-12, adding almost 120,000 TEU (+29%) to its fleet. Most of this extra capacity was chartered. A lion’s share of its newbuildings will be LNG dual-fuel, including ten 15,000 TEU ships chartered from Seaspan.

Evergreen last year took delivery of 20 newbuildings, including seven megamax ships for the Asia – Europe trades. The 217,500 TEU of capacity that Evergreen received straight from the shipyards made the Taiwanese carrier (percentage-wise) the second-biggest gainer of 2022 at +12,5%.

In absolute figures, CMA CGM recorded the second biggest fleet gain as it grew capacity by more than 225,000 TEU. MSC, Evergreen and CMA CGM had already been the most expansionist carriers in 2021.

COSCO Group’s (including OOCL) fleet has shrunk for the second year in a row. After having reduced capacity by 3.2% in 2021, the Chinese group last year saw another 2.1% decline in operated capacity. At 885,000 TEU, COSCO, however, has the industry’s second-largest vessel orderbook. Apart from COSCO and Maersk, ONE (-0.8%) and HMM (-0.4%) have also reduced their fleets, albeit only marginally.

COSCO has also jumped on the methanol bandwagon with a recent order of 12 methanol-powered 24,000 TEU mammoths worth $2,87 billion. Furthermore, HMM is also preparing to order methanol-powered containerships as part of its fleet expansion strategy.

According to Alphaliner, Hapag-Lloyd’s 1.8% growth remained below average, while Wan Hai grew in line with the market at 4.1%. Yang Ming’s fleet grew by 6.8% as the carrier took delivery of five 11,860 TEU newbuildings. The individual carrier numbers compare to a global cellular fleet that registered a 4.1% growth last year and today stands at 26.40 MTEU.