Hapag-Lloyd: Box Ship Size Reaching the Limit of What Makes Economic Sense

CEO Rolf Habben-Jansen said that bunker savings potential is getting smaller as ships grow larger.

Hapag-Lloyd has admitted that the size of ever-growing mega-boxships may be reaching its limits, JOC reports. 

"We are starting to reach the limit of what makes economic sense, and this is very important for the industry," CEO Rolf Habben-Jansen said.

In addition to the fact that the amount of economic benefits received declines as ships get bigger, ports have also reportedly struggled to adapt infrastructure and the number of cranes assigned to a single ship to ships carrying significantly more cargo. 

"The incremental benefits of building ever-larger vessels are definitely declining," he said.

One area where this is particularly the case is in bunker consumption, with Habben-Jansen noting that a 4,900 TEU capacity ship uses 0.016 metric tonnes (mt) of bunker fuel per day per TEU.

That figure drops to 0.011 mt for a 10,500 TEU vessel, and 0.009 mt for a 13,200 TEU, but boosting capacity to 19,200 TEU only drops the figure to 0.008 mt of bunker fuel per day per TEU.

Earlier this week Ship & Bunker reported that an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report found that more than half of fuel savings associated with mega-boxships were actually coming from slow steaming. 

Habben-Jansen added that the company would be considering ordering a larger containership within the content of the G6 alliance, and that "we would also lean toward a 18,000- to 20,000-TEU class but only a limited number."

Ship & Bunker experts have previously forecast that the end of containership size growth was likely to come in the form of insurers who refuse to cover the ever-growing risks associated with mega-boxships.