APL reduces new vessel commitments

APL reduces new vessel commitments    APL revealed it is pushing back commitments for owned and chartered new vessels over the next few years.
   In presenting its 2008 financial results on Tuesday, Neptune Orient Lines in Singapore said it is now committed to 28 vessels in 2009 through 2012. It has already taken delivery of one ship and will take 12 more in the current year, five in 2010, none in 2011 and 10 in 2012, including eight 10,000-plus-TEU ships.
   Last October it said it was expecting to take delivery of 16 vessels this year, three in 2010, and the eight 10,000-plus-TEU ships in 2011.
   The company said new vessel deployment would be dependent on container trade dynamics and network management.

Related News •   NOL reports 4Q loss, expects same in 2009

   Ron Widdows, chief executive officer of NOL, noted there is a huge global order book continuing to overhang the container shipping market with about 5.8 million TEUs slated for delivery from 2009 onward.
   But he said some of that order book is unlikely to come to market, with some tonnage being delivered later, in part because some ships are not financed.
   “There is no question about it there will be supply overhang. It’s a question of how large and it has to do with how many ships come to delivery,” he said.

Widdows

   Widdows noted that layups are increasing quickly and now amount to 800,000 TEUs and are climbing toward 1 million TEUs.
   “There was less than one-third of that at the peak of the softness we saw at 2001-2002,” he said.
   During a presentation in which NOL reported a fourth quarter loss of $149 million> NOL revealed it lost $149 million in the fourth quarter and expected a difficult 2009, Widdows was able to point to a couple of bright spots. First, he noted inventories and new orders of all sorts of products have fallen very sharply in recent months.
   “There is going to have to be some restocking. Probably we will see some upturn in volume in the not too distant future,” he said.
   He also believed governments such as the United States and China are likely to ramp up transportation infrastructure.
   “We are likely to see transportation infrastructure development on a scale we have never seen. The funds for that is now very different from what it was a year ago. Transportation infrastructure, if you look out over the next decade, is going to have improvements that otherwise may not have taken place. For the future of transportation this is a good thing.” ' Chris Dupin