News / Surplus tonnage cascading a threat to smaller box ships

© Mr.siwabud Veerapaisarn

Ocean carriers are busy cascading bigger ships on to secondary trades in order to absorb some of their surplus tonnage as they prepare to receive more ultra-large tonnage from the shipyards.

Every potential growth opportunity is being assessed in carrier networks to redeploy the remaining smaller vessels deployed on the Asia-Europe tradelanes to other routes, at the expense of the incumbent ships.

With freight rates from Asia to Europe and the US expected to be under further pressure until at least the ...