SIMIC

LIKE it or not - and there is plenty of reason not to like it - slow steaming is much in vogue adding two to three days to east-west voyages, says Lars Jensen, CEO of the Vespucci Maritime consultancy, reports New York's Journal of Commerce.

The 2M Alliance will add two megaships to its AE6/Lion service from Asia to North Europe in early June, part of a programme to reduce speed on all eight of the alliance's Asia-Europe loops.



"The operating speeds of these vessels are being reduced. This is hardly surprising and follows a true-and-tested approach by ocean carriers when faced with overcapacity and/or higher fuel costs," said Mr Jensen.



"The first large-scale example this time around is the announcement from 2M Alliance partners Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) that they will inject nine vessels into the Asia-Europe trade in order to slow down round-trip sailing times. In essence, it will take a week longer for the full round trip on the affected services.



"Not only does it absorb part of the impending overcapacity from many of the new vessels being delivered, but it also reduces the relative importance of the fuel cost.



"The latter stands to become highly important in 2024 as the European Union begins to phase in carbon taxes on the shipping sector and the International Maritime Organisation 2023 rules begin to take hold," he said.



"It should be expected that other carriers will follow suit, also on other longer deep-sea trades such as the transpacific and Asia to South America..



"This behavior is certainly not new from the carriers. In the middle of the 2000s, the norm for an Asia-Europe service was to operate with seven or eight vessels. Today, this is typically done with 11 to 13 vessels," said Mr Jensen.