FEW BREAKING UPS OF CONTAINER SHIPS. THE MARKET RUNS THE RISK TO BE IN EXCESS OF STOWAGE

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Evergreen added to his service RW toward West the first ship series "D", the "Ever Dainty" of 4173 teu, and while the other nine ships will progressively enter in service, within 1998, the ships of the series "R" of 4229 teu, which are now used, will be transferred to the service RW toward Est.

They are recently built ships. The oldest ones, according to the company, will be withdrawn from service and dismissed. "Giving the old ships to other shipowners for a further use - wisely said the president of the Taiwanese company, Y.F. Chang - would be a suicide".

The politics of Evergreen is, in fact, this: the old ships must be dismantled because, favoring their reuse, the low cost of capitals for the new shipowners would determine a strong competition on the market and therefore further reduction of freight rates. It is in fact the overcapacity the main enemy of the shipowners, often fighting against a market where the excess of tonnages favours the dumping of the offer. Furthermore, old ships mean a higher likelyhood of incidents.

On the other side there are unavoidable reasons which push in the opposite direction. In fact, it would be difficult to justify to the shareholders the demolition of a ship rather than counting up a sure revenue coming from selling the same ship. And in fact, most of the shipowners try to prolong at the most the life of their ships and avoid the market necessity which would expect be dismantled.

It should be remembered that after the first oil crisis and the margination from the market of the big tankers, two decades were needed to the shipowners to get rid of the vlcc in excess.

In the sector of containers such market situation has not yet happened as most of the fleet (ships of more than 500 teu) has been built very recently. 138 ships for more than 350,000 teu of capacity, 10% of the world fleet, has been built last year, while 501 ships for 1,800,000 teu, 30% of the world fleet, has been built between 1990 and 1995.

Few are the ships which can still be considered obsolete. 176 ships are older than 20 years old for a capacity of more than 300,000 teu, not even 10% of the fleet.

But the demolitions list is almost empty and also in this sector the operators fear the overcapacity. Between 1991 and the last April the dismantled containers were 42 for 50,000 teu, about 1.4% of the world fleet in terms of teu. Considering the 200 ships for half million teu which will enter in service by the end of the year and the 182 for 450,000 teu foreseen in 1998, the statistical of the demolitions does not let anticipate anything good.

Everything let opinion think of the shipping industry be unable to adequate the offer to the tonnage demand and that periodically pays the consequences dear.

Bruno Bellio