Container shipping has reached enormous proportions in this century – and continues to grow. This can be seen particularly clearly in China.
The China Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) is planning an oversized ship, but that is not the end of the story. At this year’s SMM in Hamburg, CSSC announced that it had received the “Approval in Principle” (AiP) for a container ship with 27,500 TEU; 3,000 TEU more than the largest ships to date. It is to be equipped with an LNG dual-fuel propulsion system.
Ports in China invest in berths
At the same time, new berths for ships of up to 32,000 TEU are being built in Ningbo-Zhoushan, the world’s largest port. The port is investing almost US$1bn in this. Berths of this size are also to be built further south in Yantian.
The largest container ship in the world at the moment is the “Ever Alot” from the Evergreen shipping company with 24,004 TEU. A series of 24,346 TEU ships is currently under construction for MSC. However, the majority of global freight is transported by ships in the 16,000 TEU class, as these can also be used off the Asia-Europe route.
