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Oversupplied ocean carriers steaming toward excess capacity

By Greg Knowler

The container shipping industry this year will manage to stay ahead of the rapidly building wave of excess capacity looming over ocean carriers as geopolitics, network disruptions and frontloading keep all vessels employed on major trade lanes.

But such is the volume of capacity coming online beyond 2026 that escaping the jaws of excess supply will be difficult, with delivered tonnage likely to overwhelm the

market, according to speakers in a Journal of Commerce webcast conducted on July 9.

“ It’ s very hard to see carriers not being absolutely pressed with massive amounts of oversupply and chasing down marginal revenue towards marginal cost,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis.

Ocean carriers have been in this position before. Toward the end of 2019, there was far more capacity coming online than was required, and analysts were predicting a sharp drop in rates. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global disruption that allowed the container shipping industry to bank operating profits of $ 500 billion over the next three years.

At the end of 2023, the once again heavily oversupplied carriers were predicting a dismal 2024 before the Houthi militants in Yemen began attacking ships in the Red Sea in support of Hamas after Israel’ s invasion of Gaza. Shipping quickly switched to routes around southern Africa, with the longer transits absorbing 10 % of global capacity.

Most 2026 newbuilds head into disrupted container trades

By Michael Angell

Ocean carriers have thrown most of their newbuilds delivered in 2026 into European, Indian subcontinent and Middle East trade lanes, according to vessel tracking data. Despite the rise in spot ocean freight rates to the US, newbuild capacity is being deployed to stabilize other global container trades disrupted by threats in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz.

Through June, container carriers put 44 ships with more than 8,000 TEUs of capacity built this year into service, according to data from Sea-web, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. Those post- and neo-Panamax ships, used most frequently in long-haul trades from Asia, accounted for 603,000 TEUs, or just over one-third of the 1.6 million TEUs expected to be delivered in 2026.

Asia – Europe trades are absorbing most of those new ships in their initial deployments. Sea-web data shows 17 of the new vessels were last seen trading in the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe. Middle East and Indian subcontinent trades account for another six vessels.

Total newbuild capacity on the European, Mideast and Indian subcontinent trades amounted to 328,584 TEUs.

North America, though, saw only seven of the newbuilds trade there since the start of June, Sea-web data shows, amounting to about 88,000 TEUs. Four of the ships are serving West Coast ports. US East Coast services saw two

VCG / Contributor / Getty Images

newbuilds added while one went to the US Gulf Coast.

South America was the last trading area seen for six of the newbuilds. Another eight were last seen trading in the Far East and Southeast Asia, where they could still be undergoing sea trials or deployed on intra-Asia services.

Robbert van Trooijen, a former executive with Maersk and P & O Nedlloyd and a Journal of Commerce contributor, said many of the deployments followed typical network patterns. Thanks to their

14 Journal of Commerce | August 3, 2026 www. joc. com