News / Red Sea crisis forces Maersk to increase capacity over strategy limit

Photo: VesselFinder

Maersk Line appears to have temporarily abandoned its strategy of maintaining capacity at no more than 4.3m teu.

The Danish carrier has been feverishly chartering ships in recent weeks and, according to Alphaliner, its fleet now equates to more than 4.5m teu.

Maersk, in its alliance with Hapag-Lloyd, the Gemini Cooperation, has been trying to narrow the capacity gap with standalone MSC and the Ocean Alliance networks.

Consultancy Linerlytica noted that a fleet limit of 4.3m teu had been part of Maersk’s strategy since 2018, when the Danish line was still the market leader, a position it lost to MSC in 2022.

However, despite Maersk’s frantic vessel chartering, the gap between itself and MSC continues to widen, and is set to exceed 2m teu within the next three months, as MSC’s newbuilding and second-hand vessel buying spree continues.

Maersk’s spokesperson told The Loadstar the company had not gone back on limiting its fleet to 4.3m teu, but these were just minor adjustments.

She said: “There is no change to the strategy, but there might be short term deviations from that range. Due to the situation related to the Red Sea disruptions, for instance, we’ve added capacity to mitigate impact on our customers’ cargo flows.”

Last August, when Maersk said its newbuilding orders and vessel charters, amounting to 800,000 teu, would provide annual fleet renewal of 160,000 teu for the next five years, its head of asset strategy and strategic partnerships, Ahmed Hassan, asserted that these would not add to  capacity.

Mr Ahmed said: “Over time, every vessel coming in will be replacing a scrapped vessel having reached end of life, ensuring that we maintain our fleet size at around 4.3m teu.”

Linerlytica noted that Maersk remained short of tonnage to fully cover Gemini’s requirements and, last week, reportedly chartered Peter Doehle’s 5,605 teu Herta (pictured above) in an off-market deal. It will be deployed on Gemini’s South Korea-Tanjung Pelepas shuttle service.

Unverified reports also claim that Maersk has chartered a ship from Taiwanese regional carrier Wan Hai Lines, the 4,178 teu Wan Hai 521 reported to have been fixed for around six months at a rate of $62,000 a day.