On 28 December last year the idle boxship fleet stood at 331 vessels with a total capacity of 1.36m teu five times that of the start of 2015 as the demand – supply balance “worsened drastically”.
In the last two weeks of 2015 all sizes below 7,500 teu saw an increase in the number of idle vessels, the vast majority belonging non-operating owners. In the larger sizes above 7,500 teu a number of 13,000 – 14,000 teu vessels idled over the Chinese Golden Week were phased back into service.
“Carriers will nevertheless continue to implement blanked sailings for the post-Lunar New Year period in February, which will lead to similar numbers of large ships becoming idle in the next two months. A significant reduction of the idle fleet is thus not expected until April,” Alphaliner commented in its weekly report.
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