Container scrapping could triple in ?09

Container scrapping could triple in Æ09    Containership scrapping could reach 350,000 TEUs this year, about three times 2008’s level, according to a forecast by information service AXS Alphaliner.
   Already about 250,000 TEUs have been scrapped in 2009. That has helped slightly slow the growth of the containership fleet in July when new deliveries of 73,600 TEUs were offset by 34 ships with 54,000 TEUs going to the breakers, said Alphaliner in its latest newsletter.
   “We could see about 900 to 1,000 ships being recycled this year,” compared to a pace of about 300 ships per year prior to the third quarter of 2008, said Anil Sharma, chief executive of Global Marketing Systems, a Maryland-based firm that buys ships for recycling.
   “Mostly containerships and short-haul carriers are being scrapped today” as opposed to large bulk carriers and tankers, said Sharma in remarks during a seminar sponsored last month by Capital Link.
   Despite the increased scrapping and the fact that Alphaliner says “not a single containership was ordered in the past 10 months, and unprecedented situation” existing orders are expected to swell the world fleet of 4,690 container ships with 12.8 million TEUs of capacity by 9.8 percent this year. This in an industry where already 10.3 percent of ships are idle or in layup.
   There are now 5.26 million TEUs of capacity on order, Alphaliner said, about 41 percent of the current fleet. That’s off the peak of 64 percent of the fleet in November 2007.