The Red Sea crisis is still raging, and although CMA CGM and Maersk have partially resumed Red Sea shipping, risks remain. Looking ahead, the possibility of the container shipping market reaching equilibrium in a few years is becoming increasingly slim.
2024 is expected to be another difficult year for the shipping industry. The biggest uncertainty is how the team will cope with the pressure of record newbuilding deliveries for the second year in a row. This has undoubtedly brought great challenges to the liner industry and the charter market.
Analysts**, the market outlook will be full of thorns until 2025. Despite the potential for an increase in ship recycling, the new capacity will exceed 2 million TEU for the third year in a row.
According to Clarkson, container fleet capacity is expected to grow by 8% in 2023, 7% in 2024 and about 5% in 2025, making the expectation of restoring the balance between supply and demand by 2026 slim.
According to the Container Xchange report, if the container shipping market is not properly managed in 2024, the surge in deliveries will lead to fierce competition, which in turn will lead to shrinking profits and may even trigger a wave of mergers and acquisitions.
Over-ordering vessels during the "super-boom" period could lead to overcapacity in 2024, turning the company from a profit in 2023 to a loss.
Under current trends, the cargo and charter market is expected to be weak in 2024. Compared to the cargo market, the charter market will barely remain stable in 2023.
Despite the disappointing number of ship removals and sluggish cargo demand on many lanes, there are still some optimistic market watchers** who could see a slight recovery in the market in early 2024.
Alphabliner said that due to the low idle fleet and limited available vessels, the company is still interested in chartering more vessels even if it receives a large number of newbuildings.