The end of the mega container ship?

[Kapitan]

Just reading this article from freight waves and well there is clearly some fundamental errors in the reporting, What do you think about it is the era of the Big bad Container ships at an end?

Article: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/bi...thing?p=430098

While there are negatives to having huge ships there are positives too, the bigger ships require the same crew as the smaller ones, a typical ULCV has about 25-30 crew the same as a 8,000TEU container ship.

However to do a run that a ULCV would normally do would require 3 8,000TEU ships, that turns out to be very costly in the long term.

Environmentally the ULCVs put out less CO2 and NOX emissions per mile than any other ship (bar LNG carriers) its pollution footprint is much smaller per ton mile for cargo carried.

I take issue with the point that ports and domestic infrastructure should be paid for by the shipping line, its not down to the shipping line that the road network in a country is not capable of carrying the load it brings in that’s a problem for that countries government to keep up with consumer demand within its own state.

At the end of the day the rise of the ULCV is due in three parts 1. Consumerism 2. economics 3. the off shoring of manufacturing industries.

A lot of shipping lines lease terminals and actually do pay for enhanced infrastructure dredging etc to say they don’t is silly, they also have to pay port duties on arrival so the tax payer is getting its share of them entering and port duties for a ULCV are actually eye watering in some parts of the world.

Pre covid freight rates for ocean transport were fairly stable and pretty static.

The reason you see the ships off the port of Los Angeles (and many others) is due to the shut down in China during covid no port in China operated ships backed up this creates a big issue with loading and unloading, and that batch also reach the end destination at the same time.

Shipping lines operate tight schedules Maersk has a policy of a 48 hour turn around for a ULCV, the schedules themselves create stability in the market something the consumer wants because if it was irregular there would be large price swings for consumer goods. it also creates a steady supply chain network and releases the need to have massive stockpiles of items sitting in warehouses costing money to store.

The other side to it is that during the shut down in the USA for example nothing was moving off the port so when the batch of ships did arrive there was no where to put the new inbound containers, and if you cant get containers off the ship you cant put the empties or reloaded ones back on.

Couple that to a shortage of truck drivers taking containers in and out the ports and you have a total recipe for a disaster.

The praise be bit in this article is a little early, what your seeing is a cycle, the ULCVs are relatively new they wont need replacing for another 20-30 years, and when these ships came about they displaced the smaller ships sailing the same routes.

The smaller ships were redeployed to act like feeders to smaller ports (Hub and Spoke) now the container ships in the range of 8,000 to 17,000TEU are much older than the ULCVs and so they are coming to the end of their life cycles (a lot are nearing the 20 or more years old) Emma Maersk was built in 2006 and likely will be out of service by 2030/35.

She misses out a lot of scope in her article things that people who work on the inside in the industry know.

She also focuses her attention towards the academics who are not always best placed to comment on the industry as it is very fluid and in some cases don’t understand the maritime sphere too well.

most of the planet is now geared onto a Just in time method of supply, the warehousing capacity is no longer there

What’s more the consumer will still want ever increasing amounts of goods to be transported cheaply and what I get from reading this is she is happy to see 3 times more ships sailing producing more pollution than ever before which in turn actually will put more strain on infrastructure because that is what it will take to keep up with the demand.

[Platapus]

I understand that one of the issues is that no one wants to pay to ship empty containers back to China. Back when we sold stuff to China, including our trash, there was incentive.



China is not going to pay to ship containers back to them, nor is the US companies.


This reminds me of a similar problem that China had with DPRK years ago. That involved rail freight cars.


I guess any time you have an unequal shipping situation this type of problem comes up.

[Skybird]

Possible they have become a bit too big. Container shipping is a reason why things have become so cheap and affordable (comparable to assembly lines and mass production) , so a development at that direction - growing business with container an dbigger ships) was logical. But one may have exaggerated it. A bit like with the A380 versus Dreamliner bet by Airbus and Boeing. We know by now that the A380 was one step too far, too big. Smaller planes are in demand, the A380 is already doomed to become a petrified dinosaur.

Maybe container ships will shrink a bit in size, and container shipping certainly will take a dive, now that globalization is kind of reversed to lower dependency from China. Disappearing it will not. Smaller ships, maybe even more of them than there are now. More flexibility for freight scheduling.

But all that is in the end just my unqualified guessing. I know not much, better: nothing about this business. Only that the costs per container have exploded by factors of up to 20 - and that was Fanatec saying so in autumn last year.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I understand that one of the issues is that no one wants to pay to ship empty containers back to China. Back when we sold stuff to China, including our trash, there was incentive.



China is not going to pay to ship containers back to them, nor is the US companies.


This reminds me of a similar problem that China had with DPRK years ago. That involved rail freight cars.


I guess any time you have an unequal shipping situation this type of problem comes up.

Indeed very much so but there are ways around this, namely if you export bulk materials why not bag it and send it via container naturally not a major load but that gives you a back load opportunity.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Possible they have become a bit too big. Container shipping is a reason why things have become so cheap and affordable (comparable to assembly lines and mass production) , so a development at that direction - growing business with container an dbigger ships) was logical. But one may have exaggerated it. A bit like with the A380 versus Dreamliner bet by Airbus and Boeing. We know by now that the A380 was one step too far, too big. Smaller planes are in demand, the A380 is already doomed to become a petrified dinosaur.

Maybe container ships will shrink a bit in size, and container shipping certainly will take a dive, now that globalization is kind of reversed to lower dependency from China. Disappearing it will not. Smaller ships, maybe even more of them than there are now. More flexibility for freight scheduling.

But all that is in the end just my unqualified guessing. I know not much, better: nothing about this business. Only that the costs per container have exploded by factors of up to 20 - and that was Fanatec saying so in autumn last year.

The Boeing airbus bet was a simple theory based on practice, Airbus bet on the hub and spoke method (then largely in use) Boeing the direct route, in air travel the direct route is much preferred but this in turn eliminates the smaller regionals.

The direct route for shipping isn't always the best route yes it sounds stupid but you have a chain the big ships will call at various ports picking up and setting down then feeders take them to smaller ports.

Problem with that is if you want a system like what Boeing bet on your going to need a lot more ships, more ships means more pollution, same in the aviation industry.

[Platapus]

I wonder if a practical solution is a "sea train"?


Not the DARPA sea train but something like this













Several relatively smaller un-crewed container ocean barges connected and pulled by a sea going prime mover.


Like a train, the consist can be changed as the need occurs


When the arrive at a port, they can be separately docked and unloaded without the need for gigantic port facilities.

[mapuc]

^ Interesting concept

The engineers behind this idea has they taken every thing into account ?

Here I'm thinking hurricane-Even though I think they will try to avoid an upcoming Hurricane.

Rough sea - The Atlantic and the Pacific isn't exactly calm.

Markus

[Kapitan]

Indeed an interesting concept but how practicable is it ?

In a port system like Europe i could see it working but not for the likes of North America

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by mapuc

^ Interesting concept

The engineers behind this idea has they taken every thing into account ?

Here I'm thinking hurricane-Even though I think they will try to avoid an upcoming Hurricane.

Rough sea - The Atlantic and the Pacific isn't exactly calm.

Markus

The problem with towing astern or pushing ahead with chains and or hawser is trying keep the tug and barge ‘in-step’ especially in building seas.

Someone got around that problem in the mid to late seventies with something I think still referred too as a composite tug and barge system. The system is a ridged connection which permits the tug and barge to pitch and roll as one. I suppose the same system could be used to connect multiple barges together and use a tug like the Presque Isle for propulsion. I just don’t know if it’s such a great idea.

(edit): Here is the Presque Isle. The barge is around 900 feet long the and the tug 150 feet. When rigidly connected act as one.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I understand that one of the issues is that no one wants to pay to ship empty containers back to China. Back when we sold stuff to China, including our trash, there was incentive.



China is not going to pay to ship containers back to them, nor is the US companies.


This reminds me of a similar problem that China had with DPRK years ago. That involved rail freight cars.


I guess any time you have an unequal shipping situation this type of problem comes up.

Precisely