7% of boxship order book canceled

7% of boxship order book canceled    Nearly 7 percent of the 6.5 million TEUs of containership capacity ordered through October 2008 has been canceled, according to a report Monday by the maritime news service Alphaliner.
   'The cancelled orders include 27 containership orders that were converted into other vessel types by their owners,' Alphaliner said. 'The remainder of the canceled orders were outright cancellations or orders that have been delayed to such an extent that they are believed to have been dropped, especially in cases where shipyards faced difficulties in meeting contractual deadlines allowing owners to get out of their commitments. Further cancellations could emerge, as discussions are still ongoing between the shipyards and owners. Also, some cancellations may not have been disclosed yet.'
   Alphaliner said the list does not include cancellations of contracts where construction had already begun, as well as for completed ships that have not been delivered due to their owners' failure to make full payments.
   'These cancellations have not been included in the statistics as the ships will still enter the fleet as the shipyards will resell them or reach an eventual financial settlement with the original owners,' Alphaliner said.
   The largest number of cancellations came in the 1,000-TEU to 1,800-TEU segment. Though there were fewer larger ship order cancellations, those ships represent more canceled capacity.
   'Although only 31 units of 4,000 TEUs and above were canceled (22 percent of all cancelled orders), they represent 52 percent of the capacity (228,500 TEUs) removed from the order book,' Alphaliner said.
   The vast majority of cancellations came from German non-operating owners (98 out of 140 ships canceled).