After initial soundings in August, possible newbuilding plans at Hapag-Lloyd are apparently becoming concrete. Shipyards have already been selected.
What first made the rounds as a rumour seems to be increasingly confirmed. Brokers report that the company has apparently already secured building sites at shipyards in China.
The ships in question are 9,000 TEU and 17,000 TEU and are to be equipped with dual-fuel engines. One fuel option is LNG. There is now speculation that the orders will be finalised in the coming weeks.
Hapag-Lloyd has some catching up to do
The No. 5 in global container shipping still has one of the smallest order books in the industry. Alphaliner currently lists 12 newbuildings with 176,000 TEU, which corresponds to 7.8% of the existing fleet capacity. For the industry as a whole, Clarksons lists 234 ships with 2.8 million TEU for this year alone. With the exception of the Israeli carrier Zim (6.9%), all other top 10 liner shipping companies have significantly more units in their order books.
By way of comparison, MSC still has 129 ships with 1.8 million TEU (29.4% of its fleet) on order, CMA CGM has 80 units with 1 million TEU (28%) and Cosco has 46 new freighters with 773,000 TEU (23.5%). These companies are all ahead of the Hamburg-based company in the ranking. At ONE, in 6th place directly behind Hapag-Lloyd, there are 45 ships with just under 600,000 TEU (30.8%). Only Maersk is similarly restrained as Hapag-Lloyd with orders for 33 ships with 443,000 TEU (10.2%).
20-30 new ships for Hapag-Lloyd?
According to earlier information, the upcoming orders are for ten medium-sized freighters with a capacity of 8,000-9,000 TEU and a further ten units with up to 17,000 TEU. Including ten options, the order value would total around US$5.4bn.
The shipping company has not yet announced any concrete plans. However, there is also a need to renew the fleet in order to replace ageing tonnage on the one hand and, on the other, to achieve its own ambitious environmental targets (climate-neutral by 2045).
Another declared goal of the current “Strategy 2030” is to remain among the top 5 carriers. With a total capacity of 2.24 million TEU, Hapag-Lloyd is currently still ahead of One (1.94 million TEU) and Evergreen (1.72 million TEU) in the following places. Without a counterattack by the Hamburg-based company, both could soon overtake thanks to a significantly larger newbuilding program.
Hapag-Lloyd’s most recent orders included the twelve Megamax freighters of the “Berlin Express” class, ten units with 10,000 TEU and five ships with 13,000 TEU.
