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THE
competition for greater economies of scale
is truly beginning to heat up in the container
shipping industry with CMA CGM's recent
unleashing of its new mega vessel, the 16,000
TEU Marco Polo, on the Asia-Europe trade.
The
vessel, the first of three such ships ordered
by the French shipping line, will enjoy
its status as the world's largest containership
in service for only a matter of months as
the industry prepares for the arrival of
Maersk Line's first 18,000 TEU ship in the
early part of this year.
The
sight of these modern day leviathans arriving
at ports throughout the world will no doubt
have smaller shipping lines very nervous
about their future viability in trades like
Asia-Europe and the transpacific...
CMA
CGM executive officer and member of the
board of directors, Rodolphe Saade, told
HKSG Group Media that if lines don't deploy
these larger vessels they shouldn't expect
to last too long on the major trade lanes.
"On
the Asia-Europe trade today, if you don't
deploy big vessels [over 10,000 TEU], you
are dead," he said.
"Anything
below 10,000 TEU it is impossible to survive.
So for those who do not have ships of that
size they will either have to leave the
trade or buy space on carriers that do have
these monster ships," Mr Saade said.
While
these massive vessels do offer the likes
of CMA CGM, and others like Maersk Line,
the advantage of reduced unit costs, these
ships are entering the trade at a time in
the industry's history where any new capacity
cannot be accommodated¡Xa fact that the
Marseilles-based carrier well understands.
CMA
CGM is responding to this challenge by upping
the ante on slow steaming.
Until
now a majority of the shipping lines engaged
in slow steaming are only sailing at reduced
speeds on the return or backhaul legs of
the trades they are operating in. Mr Saade
says the next step will be to slow steam
on both head and backhaul voyages, which
will enable the carrier to not only add
more vessels into its service loops, but
will lower fuel consumption and expenditure.
Of
course doing this will come with its own
set of challenges, but the senior executive
noted that the move was an inevitable one.
"It
will be difficult. It is going to affect
our transit time. It will upset customers,
but at the end of the day we cannot lose
money. I hope that we can find another way,
but there are going to be a lot of vessels
coming online in 2013," he said.
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