Smaller feeders face marginalisation
The recent wave of newbuilding contracts for vessels of over 8,000 teu will start to tell on the ports themselves, as smaller feeder facilities start feeling the impact of the increases.
The latest European Port Tracker from Hackett Associates points out that rather than the smallest fleet segment being utilised by the additional capacity, it is being lost. In fact the past five years has been characterised by an upward trend to the profile of the smaller ship groups, which have increased their sizes at a rate running between 2% and 5% per year since 2006.
Further, the 3,000 to 5,000 teu vessels which have been dropping off the Europe-Far East trading lanes are seeking new trades.
Since these have even been showing up on intra-regional routes there has been an ongoing impact. Ben Hackett of Hackett Associates told Port Strategy, “The influx of the very large, indeed the ultra large, container ships has its downside in terms of flexibility. Due to their size they need to focus on large volume base ports and feeders, but even the feeders need to be larger than in the past.” He added, “The cascading certainly plays into the large ship strategy, at the expense of the traditional smaller feeder sizes.”
The Tracker report explains that recent ISL research suggests that this trend is set to last and that the largest vessel segments will be the ones with the super-proportional growth for the next 15 years to come.
“Meanwhile, smaller size classes will continue to face ongoing marginalisation,” said Mr Hackett.
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