Latest Boxships Charter Rates Eclipse the Previous Records!

8,500TEU vessel charter rates jump 330% in 2021

Even though the global container freight market runs hot red, the shortage of vessels resulted from serious delays has prompted ocean liners to pay extremely high prices for any available charters. 6~12 months charter rate for an 8,500TEU vessel has soared to USD$65,000 on June,4, a jump of ~330% from the year-ago assessment of USD$15,000.

High freight rates transform multi-year charters into a mainstream

The strong market momentum in the industry has shown no signs of slowing down but has instead strengthened further in 2021 with many 6~12 months basis charters being replaced with multi-year charters, which indicates a shift in favour of ocean liners as high freight rates are likely to offset the increasing chartering costs.

Asian shipbuilders can hardly fulfil large order books

An upsurge of new build orders in the first half of 2021 has pushed the order book to a high not seen since 2014; however, 2021 to 2022 deliveries are expected to provide only marginal growth to global fleet capacity, which is not enough to handle the current strong demand for new vessels.

Due to the limited production capacity, new-build container ships won’t be delivered until 2023, implying that the fleet growth should slow next year while rebounding strongly in 2023. In 2023, the global containership fleet is expected to grow by 6-7%, an 8-year high.

Source: S&P Global Platts