Current idled fleet only the beginning

Current idled fleet only the beginning A German ship owner claims the number of idled containerships will double or triple over the next two years, Lloyd’s List reported Monday.
   Speaking at a ship finance forum in Hamburg, Claus-Peter Offen admitted that ship owners and carriers got carried away with container volume growth.
   “The crisis led to a fast decline in demand, but we would have been faced with overcapacity anyway,' Offen said. 'We have been too optimistic in believing that the double-digit growth will continue and ordered too many ships.'
   AXS Alphaliner estimated Monday that 453 ships with total capacity of about 1.35 million TEU are idled, about 10.7 percent of the world cellular fleet. That’s up from 392 ships with 1.1 million TEUs of capacity two weeks ago.
   AXS Alphaliner said about 220 of those ships are charter market ships.
   Offen said that ship owners can only control supply, so they will continue to idle ships to cut capacity until demand rebounds.
   “Lay-ups are necessary to cope with the current crisis,' he said. 'Since we do not know when demand is coming back we had to concentrate on the supply side.'
   He predicted that the volume of idled ships will double current levels (roughly 1 million TEUs of capacity have been idled so far) and triple current levels by 2010.