As 2013 began, the fully cellular containership fleet contained 469 vessels of 8,000+TEU (VLCS), with a combined capacity of 4.69m TEU. Just six years ago, at the start of 2007, the 134 VLCSs then on the water comprised 1.17m TEU. This rapid growth of the VLCS fleet has driven significant infrastructure development, but how many global ports are now seeing VLCS calls, and how has the geographical distribution changed since 2007?

At the start of 2007, 90% of 8,000+TEU capacity (and all three of the 12,000+TEU vessels) was deployed on the Asia-Europe trade. Of the 57 global ports that received calls from VLCSs, 53 were on this trade lane, with 25 ports in Europe, 22 ports in Asia and 6 ports in the Middle East. Elsewhere, four ports in North America (LA, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle) saw calls from VLCSs deployed on the Transpacific trade. Six years ago, just 13 ports received 12,000+ TEU boxships, seven in Asia and six in Europe.

Based on start 2013 deployment patterns, the number of ports receiving calls from 8,000+TEU ships had doubled to 114. As displayed in the Graph of the Month, Europe and Asia continue to dominate, with 34 and 33 ports respectively, but other global ports responded in the interim to the swiftly expanding and upsized fleet.

Notably, 17 ports in Latin America are now receiving scheduled VLCS calls, while four African ports (Cape Town, Durban, Port Louis, Port Elizabeth) are currently called at by 8,000+TEU ships. Neither region handled VLCS vessels in 2007. This indicates the development of North-South trade, and illustrates the cascading process in action, as relatively smaller VLCS capacity (that was once deployed on mainlane routes but which has been displaced by higher capacity new-builds) is redeployed on rapidly growing non-mainlane trades. Elsewhere, 17 ports in North America (including ten on the East & Gulf Coasts) now see VLCS calls.

The number of ports receiving calls from 12,000+TEU containerships has risen to 36. Although these ultra-large vessels are still mainly deployed on the Asia-Europe mainlane, their range has expanded significantly to include secondary ports beyond the traditional mega-ports. A few of these ultra-large ships are also beginning to call on the US West Coast, thus an increasing number of 12,000+TEU boxships may well eventually be deployed on the Transpacific trade.

VLCS fleet growth is set to outstrip overall fleet growth for at least the next few years (1.10m TEU of VLCS capacity is scheduled to be delivered in 2013 alone), and the expanding geographic diversity of VLCS port calls has been encouraged by the cascade of capacity down from the mainlanes, Meanwhile, the range of ports receiving calls from 12,000+TEU vessels is increasingly becoming wider than many expected.

(Hellenic Shipping News, 27 January 2013)