Box ships breach 10,000 teu barrier

摘要

With the first contracts for container ships of more than 10,000 teu announced recently, container port authorities are watching developments in vessel size and dimensions very closely. It is, after all, not so long ago that 6,500 teu units were seen as the arterial vessels of the future. Then the focus moved to 8,500 teu container ships and now, experts believe, Cosco's order for four 10,000 teu vessels at Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) is likely to set a new pattern for similar orders from other leading container lines. Lloyd's Register's (LR) David Tozer, Business Manager Container Ships, is convinced that the largest vessels will continue to increase in size. He points out that the classification society is already working in South Korea with shipbuilders there on 12,000 teu-plus ship designs and believes that contracts for such vessels could be only two or three years away. In fact, even bigger units of, say, 14,000 teu are certainly feasible and could potentially offer significant economies of scale in certain operational circumstances on a limited number of mainhaul routes in the future.