WITH the approach of the weak summer season, the idle containership fleet rose to 446,200 TEU in early July with carriers redelivering surplus chartered ships while demand for big ships remained firm.

The was also muted activity for 3,000-TEUers, resulting in softening in charter rates for smaller sizes. Of the 211 ships currently without employment, 167 units are between 500 and 3,000 TEU, according to Alphaliner.



Although the carrier-controlled idle fleet dropped to its lowest levels since October 2011 to 115,700 TEU, the non-operating owner (NOO) idle fleet has increased to 330,500 TEU, bringing the percentage of the idle fleet that are without chartered employment to 74 per cent. 147 out of the 171 idle NOO units are within the 500-3,000 TEU range while a further 23 units are in the 3,000-5,000 TEU range. The steady rise in the charter-free fleet will continue to keep a lid on charter rates over the coming months, especially for the 2,000- to 4,000-TEU range.



The idle fleet is expected to grow as carriers refrain from introducing new capacity into an already over-supplied market. Several carriers also started to skip sailings on the Asia-Europe route in July, in what should have been the peak season for the trade, said Alphaliner.



All eyes will be on Evergreen in the coming weeks as it takes delivery of its first 8,500-TEU 'L'-class newbuildings later this month, with roughly one new ship from this series due every month over the next 35 months. The first unit, the Ever Lambent, is expected to inaugurate a new Far East-North Europe service at Shanghai on August 1.



The industry observers also note that carriers are caught in a dilemma, with increasingly limited options to deploy all the newbuildings due to be delivered over the next 18 months. More than 2.4 million TEU is due to be delivered between July 2012 and December 2013, representing 15 per cent of the current fleet.