International Maritime
coming online, Maersk flagged a potential $ 1.5 billion loss in its full-year EBIT earnings for 2026; it would be the first operating loss the carrier has booked in 10 years. The top end of the profit guidance was set at $ 1 billion, $ 2.5 billion less than last year’ s result.
“ The pace and extent of scrapping will influence whether the company reaches the upper or lower end of its financial guidance for the year,” Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said on a January earnings call, noting that a wider industry return to the Suez would likely trigger an increase in scrapping.
Alphaliner took a similar view and is anticipating a rally of recycling in the second half of 2026, but only if the Suez route is once again widely used. Should Cape of Good Hope diversions continue through the year— along with the expected healthy cargo volumes, a moderate amount of newbuilding deliveries and a persistently tight supply of chartered tonnage— trading conditions could be good enough for ship owners to mostly stay clear of the recycling scene.
Alphaliner estimates just 8,172 TEUs of capacity was scrapped in 2025, the least in 20 years. Sun _ Shine / Shutterstock. com
“ Over-ordering and limited demolitions have become consistent features.”
“ The rebound in scrapping would then be deferred to 2027 and 2028 when the colossal amount of newbuilding deliveries expected to hit the water during these two years will force a streamlining of the fleet,” Alphaliner noted.
‘ Hard-wired habit’
Drewry’ s five-year forecast includes a material increase in scrapping and is based on market conditions and nearly 1.5 million TEUs of the global fleet being at least
Scrapping virtually non-existent in 2025
Global container ship fleet deliveries and retirements by ship size, with forecast
TEU capacity
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000-1,000,000 2,000,000
1,000,000
0
-1,000,000 L 2020 2025 2030
Feeder / Feedermax Panamax( 3,000-5,000 TEUs) Post-Panamax( 5,001-10,000 TEUs) 10,001-15,000 TEUs
15,001-20,000 TEUs Ultra large(> 20,000 TEUs) Retirements
L
25 years old. Still, the consultancy warned that excess capacity would remain.
“ Over-ordering and limited demolitions have become consistent features of the industry over the past 15 or so years,” Drewry wrote in its container insight.“ Therefore, one might question if this is a hard-wired habit that carriers will not be able to shake. Consolidation and bigger alliances were supposed to bring about more control, but there is little evidence of it to date.”
Ocean carriers are already aggressively managing capacity through blank sailings and slow steaming, but Drewry said if scrapping levels did not increase soon, carriers would have to consider a further reduction in speed.
“ Spending billions on new hardware only to then operate them significantly below design speed seems an inefficient waste,” Drewry said.“ It would be better to tackle the problem at source and start removing vintage ships at scale.”
Container shipping on the major east-west trades is now firmly in a buyers’ market, but Drewry warned shippers not to get too comfortable with that position.
“ While carrier behavior is notoriously difficult to predict, we have to assume that lines will not sit back idly and allow the market to drift against them without a fight,” the consultant noted.
Source: Sea-web, S & P Global © 2026 S & P Global email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com
34 Journal of Commerce | March 2, 2026 www. joc. com