International Maritime
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Still, it is difficult to see carriers finding a get-out-of-jailfree card this time, with the order book fast approaching 40 % of the in-service fleet.
Total capacity on order is at 12.3 million TEUs, 37 % of the fleet, according to Sea-web, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. Just over 1 million TEUs of capacity via ships over 10,000 TEUs is scheduled to be delivered this year, contributing to capacity growth of 4 % amid initial market predictions for demand growth of 2 % to 3 %. But carriers will truly feel the flood of incoming supply over the next two years, with 2.3 million TEUs of capacity due for delivery in 2027 and 3.8 million TEUs in 2028.
More than 6.1 million TEUs of newbuild capacity is due for delivery in 2027 and 2028. Thorsten Schier / Shutterstock. com
‘ Horror scenario’
The significant amount of capacity sailing into service will coincide with potentially normalizing Suez Canal transits, said Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at maritime consultancy Drewry.
deep-draft ports and high vessel utilization, the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe absorbed 12 of the newbuilds of over 13,000 TEUs in capacity.
The shallower draft of US ports and the resulting lower utilization of cargo space mean only four vessels over 13,000 TEUs were trading in North America. As the initial costs of those vessels are recovered over time, the bigger ships will get cascaded into North American trades.
“ Trade size and operational limitations determine the right vessel for the trade,” Van Troojien said.“ That said, carriers may simply deploy depreciated tonnage that operates on variable cost only, then size becomes less relevant.”
But the deployments also reflect the need to offset ongoing network disruptions, he added. Asia – Europe services still need more vessels to deal with the longer transit times around the Cape of Good Hope. Likewise, the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz also requires more ships to handle container trades into the Middle East.
“ These are also the trade lanes that have absorbed the largest influx due to the Persian Gulf and Suez issues, which resulted in more ships per loop,” he said.
Despite the outsized order book, other variables such as slow steaming, port
congestion, and more ships per loop mute the effects of new capacity, Destine Ozuygur, senior analyst at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, told the Journal of Commerce.
Even with the newbuilds, effective monthly capacity on the Asia – Northwest Europe trade is expected to rise 2 % from the second to third quarter, amounting to 1.21 million TEUs. Fourth-quarter effective capacity will only rise slightly to 1.23 million TEUs, Xeneta estimates.
“ Capacity, new or otherwise, is also often absorbed by disruption.”
On the Asia – Mediterranean trade, Xeneta sees effective monthly capacity rising 2 % to 898,000 TEUs in the third quarter, before sliding to 872,000 TEUs in the fourth quarter as the region’ s shipping season winds down.
“ Newbuilds are critical to understanding how market and rate dynamics may develop, but it’ s also far from a simple measure,” Ozuygur said.“ We can’ t forget that capacity, new or otherwise, is also often absorbed by disruption.
Newbuild container ships delivered in H1 2026 by trade
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|
Capacity |
Trade lane |
Ships |
( TEUs) |
Mediterranean 9 129,096 North Europe / Baltic 8 124,614 Middle East / India 6 74,874 Southeast Asia 5 62,094 West Coast South America 4 50,000 US West Coast 4 48,986 Far East 3 48,116 East Coast South America 2 26,272 US East Coast 2 30,068 US Gulf Coast 1 9,000
Grand Total |
44 |
603,120 |
Source: Sea-web |
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© 2026 S & P Global |
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“ How can we have so many blank sailings when we keep pulling in capacity from newbuilds?” she added.“ The two seem like they should be mutually exclusive, but they coexist because of the gap between theoretical schedules and how many ships are forced to spend days or weeks of time lingering or slow steaming on some of these trades.”
email: michael. angell @ spglobal. com www. joc. com August 3, 2026 | Journal of Commerce 15