The new U.S. sanctions announced this week against shipping companies with suspected links to Iran have hit the Asian carrier Sealead Shipping hard.
16 of the 22 container ships blacklisted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) are currently operating under charter for the company. The carrier is therefore under massive pressure to replace a large portion of its fleet in the coming weeks, an almost impossible task given the current shortage of available ships on the market.
As confirmed by the Singapore-based company, the ships in question are as follows:
“Ale” (3,400 TEU), “Bertie” (2,480 TEU), “Bigli” (6,350 TEU), “Hakuna Mata” (6,661 TEU), “Lidia” (3,450 TEU), “Moana” (4,944 TEU), “Pinocchio” (4,860 TEU), “Pumba” (5.060 TEU), “Rantanplan” (5,888 TEU), “Simba” (6,900 TEU), “Star” (3,534 TEU), “Tex” (2,490 TEU), “Timon” (6,966 TEU), “Yogi” (5,888 TEU), “Zagor” (3,958 TEU) and “Ace” ACE (2,681 TEU).
The total capacity to be replaced amounts to around 75,500 TEU, representing more than half of the cargo space controlled by SeaLead. According to Alphaliner, the carrier ranks 19th among global liner shipping companies with a total capacity of around 134,000 TEU.
SeaLead announced that all charter contracts and other commercial agreements for the affected ships had been terminated and that a contingency plan for unloading the ships and delivering the goods to the recipients was being drawn up. OFAC has set a deadline of October 1st for this.
Brokers are expecting an increase in requests for replacement ships from SeaLead in the coming weeks. So far, no new orders from the company have come onto the market.
