News / Shipowners back in the driving seat, with brisk business in the charter market

© Ivan Naberezhnyy

Containership brokers are reporting “brisk business”, although owners are reluctant to fix for longer periods against rising daily hire rates.

Reflecting the high demand for tonnage, Alphaliner’s idle fleet assessment has recorded a further 62 vessels with some 300,000 teu having found employment in the past two weeks.

The current 313 ships with 1.55m teu in hot or cold lay-up, representing 6.6% of the global fleet, is a vast improvement on the mid-May record of 524 vessels equating to 2.65m teu of ...