Containership scrapping reached a three-year high in July according to Hellenic Shipping News.
Sixteen ships were demolished in July, including the 1998 built 9,578-TEU Sine Maersk, the largest containership to ever be demolished.
Sine Maersk -image credit marinetraffic.com
The numbers reached 52,800 TEU, which surpassed the 50,600 TEU demolished in June. In the first seven months of 2020, 152,800 TEU were demolished, resulting in a 26.3 per cent rise from the same period last year.
The high demolition numbers of June and July came after several months of low demolition numbers. The previous three months only had 21,100 TEU removed from the market, which was 72.8 per cent lower than the same three months in 2019.
The low numbers were a result of lockdown measures, as measures prevented owners from sending their ships to the yards.
As a result of the changing numbers, in April, BIMCO changed its forecast for containership demolitions in 2020 from 200,000 TEU to 300,000 TEU, which is a 63.8 per cent increase from 2019.
The numbers reflect current market conditions, as the Covid-19 crisis resulted in a dramatic drop to demand.
Container shipping demand is down 7.7 per cent in the first five months of 2020 compared to the same time frame in 2019..
