Alphaliner: Record containership scrapping to continue in 2017

After a record setting year in 2016, containership scrapping could reach 750,000 TEUs in the coming year, according to industry analyst Alphaliner.    Containership demolition could continue to set new records in 2017, according to industry analyst Alphaliner.
   Final figures for 2016 show ocean carriers sold 655,000 TEUs of capacity for scrap for the full year and this year seems poised to break that already record-setting figure, according to the firm’s latest weekly newsletter.
   Carriers in 2016 also set records for the average age of vessels being scrapped, with the youngest boxship ever sent to the demolition yard being set at just seven years old with the November sale of the 4,250-TEU India Rickmers by the trustee-manager of troubled containership owner Rickmers Maritime.
   Increases in prices for scrapped tonnage, along with falling charter rates for containerships, has stoked fears among industry analysts that vessels whose charters are ending are worth more as scrap metal than if they were redeployed on another charter.
   Alphaliner says a total of 42,000 TEUs has already been taken off the water in just the first few weeks of the year, and projects another 113,000 TEUs will be sent to the scrap yards in the next few weeks.
   As such, the firm is estimating a total of 750,000 TEUs will be scrapped for the full year in 2017.