Several challenges for ‘World’s Largest Container Ship’

The glamourous title of the ‘World’s Largest Container Ship’ looks set to see several challenges during the next few months, as multiple new builds come into service.

Officially, the record is currently held by Evergreen, with the ‘Ever Ace’ capable of carrying 23,992 TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units). However, OOCL have taken recent delivery of the ‘OOCL Spain’, which has not quite come into service yet, and the vessel is understood to be capable of carrying 24,188 TEU.

The OOCL welcoming announcement only stated that the vessel is ‘amongst the very largest container ships in the world’. That could be because MSC has a new entry that has already started sea trials and is expected to join their fleet next month – The ‘MSC Irina’ can carry 24,346 TEU.

Even with the accolade of the largest container ship about to change hands twice quickly, this may not be the end of the upcoming challenges. There are numerous new mega ships joining the three carrier alliances in the next few months, with MSC due to welcome four on their own.

However, the timing is far from perfect for carriers to be taking on new capacity, as demand is very low on East to West trades. Ships like these take 2-3 years to build and demand was undoubtedly much higher when the orders were made.