As container shipping demand slumps a growing number of vessels are either being or sent to drydock for repair work. In its weekly report Alphaliner noted that as of 13 February the number of idle boxships over 500 teu in capacity had increased over two weeks earlier and now totals 366 ships with a total capacity of 1.62m teu, up around 140,000 teu.
According to Aplhaliner, around 6% of the global box ship fleet is currently idle, up from under 5% just a week ago and it is only the carrier-controlled small and medium-sized vessels that are sitting idle. As per the estimate, around 338 vessels totaling 1.48 million TEUs are now idle as cargo volumes, port congestion, and freight levels, and now reverting to pre-covid levels. The inactive fleet was controlled by 1,000 TEU to 2,000 TEU ships, with 74 idle vessels followed by a 3,000 TEU to 5,100 TEU range, of which there were 64 idle vessels
The vessel idling has increased across all ship size classes, excluding very large and ultra-large ships above 12,500 TEUs, where it remained somewhat stable, with just 31 inactive ships.
Source: seatrade-maritime.com