Maersk increases ship chartering to compete with MSC

The world's second largest shipping company, Maersk Line, actively chartered ships at the end of October, in the context of the Danish shipping giant trying to narrow the gap with rival MSC, the shipping company that replaced Maersk is at the top of the fleet rankings at the start of 2022.

Maersk-container-ship

Maersk's container ship (Photo: Maersk)

In just the last two weeks of October, when ship charter prices continued to decrease at a breakneck pace, Maersk committed to renting at least six ships to operate in the near future.

One of them, according to information from consulting firm Linerlytica, is that Evergreen, a shipping company that is also expanding its capacity, has leased the Thalassa Elpida with a capacity of 13,808 TEU to Maersk, a container ship that Evergreen also leased from the owner. SFL train. The content of the deal is confidential, with the only disclosed term being that Maersk will operate the vessel within three months.

Similarly, in mid-October, Evergreen's compatriot shipping company, Yang Ming, transferred a ship with a capacity of 12,690 TEU that it was leasing from Costamare, to Maersk for 57,000 USD/day for one year.

Linerlytica said, "Maersk has been particularly active in the past week as it tries to make up for lost ground against its main rival MSC, taking several ships for loaders to the US East Coast and South America."

Another ship recently leased by Maersk is the ship Nagoya Tower of shipowner Zodiac Maritime. This ship with a capacity of 4,253 TEU was built in 2003 and will be transferred to Maersk to operate within three to five months, at a rental price 17,250 USD/day.

In a similar development, ship owner Nissen Kaiun (Japan) has just closed a contract to receive four container ships from Tsuneishi Shipbuilding, each ship has a capacity of 5,900 TEU, related sources said these 4 ships was leased by Maersk.

In addition to large and medium-sized ships, Maersk is also leasing more feeder ships, such as the newly built ship Celandine with a capacity of 1,781 TEU from Hadley Shipping, for 12,000 USD/day for about 1,700 TEUs. period of two to four months.

However, MSC has widened the gap with its Danish competitor because it has not stopped leasing old ships and buying new ships. Currently, MSC is still operating a fleet of ships with a larger capacity than Maersk by more than 1.3 million TEU: MSC operates a fleet of ships with a total capacity of nearly 5.5 million TEU, while Maersk is 4.12 million TEU.

In the last week of October, MSC received two post-panamax sized ships from the three-ship charter contract signed with Costamare in April 2022, these ships will be chartered by MSC for a period of 3 years.

MSC also purchased the vessel Bea Schulte (capacity 4,600 TEU) in a separate transaction with the Schulte group, the vessel was later renamed MSC Lome V and began operating on the Africa route.

Read more: