At a time when the heat of the container ship newbuilding market has cooled down significantly, a "small shipowner" focusing on Asia-Pacific routes has bucked the trend and signed the world's "largest" container ship order this year.
According to foreign media news, Dexiang Shipping (TS Lines) recently signed a letter of intent with Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding to order 2+2 14,000TEU and 2+2 8,000TEU container ships. Among them, the single ship cost of 14,000 TEU container ships is 145 million US dollars, and the single ship cost of 8,000 TEU container ships is 89 million US dollars, so the total cost of 8 new ships is about 936 million US dollars (about 6.77 billion yuan).
For reference, Clarkson's data shows that the current newbuilding price of a traditional fuel 7500/8500TEU container ship is about 94.5 million US dollars, an increase of 4% compared with 91 million US dollars in the same period last year; The newbuilding price of a conventional fuel 13,000/13,500TEU container ship is about $148.5 million, an increase of 6% from $142 million in the same period last year.
If the order is finalized, it will be the largest vessel in the fleet and the first 10,000-container ship ordered by the company in more than 20 years.
It is understood that Dexiang Shipping, founded in 2001, is a container shipping company focusing on Asia, mainly expanding business in Asia. In recent years, Dexiang Shipping has continued to expand its service network by launching new ocean routes, expanding its trade routes to New Zealand and Canada in 2021, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the East Coast of the United States in 2022, and Indonesia and East Africa last year.
Up to now, Dexiang Shipping has operated 49 routes, with a total of 45 ships in operation, of which 35 are self-owned ships. Dexiang Shipping's fleet is dominated by regional vessels, among which the largest ship and the only medium-sized ship is the six 7000TEU container ships ordered by the company to Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding on the occasion of its 20th anniversary in 2021, which is the first batch of medium and long-haul ships in the new 20 years.
The six 7000TEU container ships will be delivered within this year and put into the China-India route to replace the original 5000TEU container ships.
For Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, the latest order of Dexiang Shipping not only marks the second cooperation between the two parties since the 7000TEU series of ships, but also means that Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has undertaken the order of 10,000 container ships again after many years. Clarkson's data shows that the last time Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding undertook ships of 10,000 TEU and above was in September 2015, when COSCO Shipping Group placed an order for three 20,000 TEU ultra-large container ships, which were delivered in 2018.
Between 2015 and 2020, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding mainly built large bulk carriers and oil tankers. From 2021 to 2023, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has undertaken as many as 34 orders for 7,000 TEU and 8 9,200 TEU medium-sized ships, occupying a leading position in this ship type field. Up to now, 20 7000TEU ships have been delivered and operated.
It is worth mentioning that the latest order of Dexiang Shipping is also of great significance to the container ship newbuilding market, and once finalized, it is expected to become the largest container ship ordered this year.
Since the beginning of this year, the number of new orders for container ships has declined sharply. According to Clarkson's statistics, in the first four months of this year, there were only 29 new orders for container ships, far lower than the 79 in the first four months of last year, while the number of new ship orders in the same period in 2021 and 2022 exceeded 200. In the past few years, container shipping giants such as Mediterranean Shipping and CMA CGM have temporarily slowed down the pace of ship booking expansion this year.
At the same time, among the new container ship orders so far this year, only Japan Ocean Network Shipping (ONE) has ordered six 13,000TEU methanol dual-fuel container ships in Yangzi Xinfu and Jiangnan Shipbuilding in January this year, and the rest are small and medium-sized ships from small and medium-sized shipping companies. In addition to ONE, only Evergreen Shipping among the top ten container shipping giants recently announced that it has ordered six 2400TEU methanol dual-fuel container ships in Wenchong, Huangpu, but this order has not yet been officially signed.
In addition, MB Shipbrokers (formerly Maersk Brokerage), a shipbrokerage company, also revealed that COSCO Shipping Group will place an order for a series of dual-fuel 11,000TEU container ships at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, which is in the finalization stage.
As the container freight rate has entered a downward cycle since the second half of 2023, the record number of new ship deliveries brought by the "order wave" in the past three years will also further put pressure on the future freight rate. According to the latest data from Alphaliner, Dexiang Shipping has a fleet of 45 ships with a capacity of about 105,000 TEU, ranking 21st in the world, with a market share of only 0.4%.
In addition to ordering 6 7000TEU medium-sized ships in Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, Dexiang Shipping has also ordered 8 1100TEU container ships and 6 2900TEU container ships in Fujian Shipbuilding in 2021, and 1 1900TEU and 1 2600TEU container ship in Huangpu Wenchong, which have been delivered and operated.
In addition to the expansion of bookings, Dexiang Marine has also submitted listing applications to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange twice in October 2022 and April 2023.
Due to the increase in freight rates and the expansion of the fleet size, in the three years from 2020 to 2022, the performance of Dexiang Shipping has grown rapidly, with revenue of about US$810 million, US$1.837 billion and US$2.444 billion respectively in the same period, and maintaining strong profitability. It is expected that by the end of this year, the series of 7000TEU ships built by Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding will be delivered, and the number of Dexiang Shipping's own ships will reach 41, with the proportion of self-owned ships exceeding 90%.