Journal indépendant d'économie et de politique des transports
23:45 GMT+1
CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE STUDI CONTAINERS
ANNO XXXVIII - Numero MARZO 2020
MARITIME TRANSPORT
HMM TAKES 100,000 TEU OF CAPACITY FROM THE 2M TO ITS NEW
ALLIANCE
"HMM is to receive nine ships back that Maersk and MSC
subchartered March 2017 as part of the carrier's slot charter
agreement with the 2M."
HMM is to receive nine ships back that Maersk and MSC
subchartered March 2017 as part of the carrier's slot charter
agreement with the 2M.
The redelivered tonnage includes three 13,092 teu Danaos-owned
vessels on long-term charter from the Greek shipowner.
According to one London broker source, Maersk and MSC took over
the charters of the three ships at a discount on the charter party
daily hire rate, with HMM paying the difference to owners.
The source told The Loadstar that, having already exceptionally
agreed to discount the daily hire rate to HMM during the carrier's
cost-cutting measures designed to ensure its survival, Danaos "held
firm" on the revised rate.
At the time, HMM was not in a strong negotiating position,
needing to become part of an alliance to receive several tranches of
desperately needed funding from state-owned banks, but it was denied
full membership of the 2M and only able to secure a slot charter
deal.
As a consequence, HMM was unable to deploy its own ships on the
Asia to Europe tradelane, and the 2M partners "took them off
their hands", according to the broker.
However, subsequently HMM has been accepted as a full member of
rival THE Alliance, alongside Hapag-Lloyd, ONE and Yang Ming, and
will officially join the VSA on 1 April.
The Danaos ships, along with five 10,081 teu vessels also
subchartered to Maersk and MSC, will be deployed on THEA's new
east-west network, stemmed to start on 1 April.
Notwithstanding HMM recording five consecutive years of losses,
including $511m last year and $708m in 2018, the carrier is taking
delivery of 12 24,000 teu ULCVs between April and September. They
will be phased into THEA's FE4 loop, replacing Hapag-Lloyd's 11
15,000 teu ships.
According to Alphaliner, the redelivered vessels and the
new-build ULCVs will add 388,000 teu to HMM's fleet, taking the
carrier's total capacity to some 790,000 teu. It will leapfrogging
its THEA partner, Yang Ming (with around 607,000 teu of capacity),
to take eighth place in the carrier league table.
When the newbuilds have all been delivered, HMM will be some way
to achieving president and CEO Jaehoon Bae's rehabilitation target
for the carrier: reaching one million teu capacity.
The consultant said the redelivery of the ships to HMM "would
not have a significant impact" on the overall fleet deployment
of Maersk and MSC, with the outgoing tonnage mainly being replaced
by ships returning from scrubber installation.
Moreover, with so many blanked sailings since Chinese new year
due to the coronavirus outbreak, and the fear of a significant
global demand slump as the virus causes lockdowns around the world,
the 2M partners could be looking to downsize their network offering
for the duration of the crisis.
Indeed, a similar message could follow from THEA partners,
obliging HMM to pause delivery of its new scrubber-fitted flagships.
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