The Japanese carrier that has blocked the Suez Canal is outnumbered by new mega-ships leaving Asian shipyards and which, according to experts, pose increasing risks to the shipping sector.
At 400 meters long and nearly 220,000 tons in capacity, the main ship of the incident, Ever Date, is just the tip of the iceberg in a sector led by Korean and Chinese companies and whose trend indicates an increase in online size with the rise of international trade.
The capacity of container vessels has increased by 1,500% since they began operating more than half a century ago. Only in the last decade has its loading potential doubled, according to German financial and insurance group Allianz Global.
BIGGER, MORE DANGEROUS
“Building ships only for economies of scale is no longer enough,” says Rahul Khanna, Allianz’s global maritime risk consultant, who sees a “clear gap” between the exponential expansion of ships and the rate at which the measures are applied.
Shipowners in South Korea and China are leading this “arms race” and in 2020 they accounted for 43% and 41% of the global market for orders for the sector, respectively, according to official data and the British consulting firm Clarkson.
Today’s five largest mega-ship models, mostly operational from 2020, are all made in South Korea and their capacity ranges from 23,000 to 24,000 TEU, well above Ever Date, which gives an idea of where to go. in the right.
In January last year, the world’s largest commercial shipbuilder, China State Shipbuiding Corporation (CSSC) delivered to the French logistics company CMA CGM a mega-cargo with a capacity of up to 23,000 containers, which is about 3,000 more more than Ever Date capacity.
The new ship, 400 meters long and 61 wide, was the fifth of the same features delivered to that company in September, when the ship Jacques Saade became, according to CSSC, the first cargo of 23,000 containers powered by natural gas smoothie in the world .
Among the dangers posed by these huge ships are the greater difficulties in the event of accidents such as fires or collisions, their greater exposure to extreme weather conditions or failures such as Ever Date in the Egyptian maritime strip, according to Khanna.
LESSONS FROM SWEDEN
The Suez Canal blockade caused daily losses of between $ 12 million and $ 15 million a day to the shipping industry, according to initial estimates, although it also left some lessons to be learned.
Ports and canals “have not always been sufficiently developed” to accommodate extra-large ships and in some cases have become “relatively narrow” and have significantly reduced “room for maneuver and margin of error,” says the captain and sailor. previous. risk consultant.
In addition, many ports “do not have sufficient infrastructure to deal with mega-ships if something goes wrong”, the expert points out, adding that “other rescue operations of this type of ship took much longer than given ever”.
The Suez crisis has opened the debate on whether the size of maritime canals like this or Panama could ultimately be a limit on the size of carriers and whether the necessary further development of infrastructure could undermine profitability. .
In Khanna’s view, the Ever Green incident “will not be enough to stop the growth” of these ships, which will continue to grow as long as risk prevention measures in infrastructure, maritime operators and shipowners are updated.
EXPANSION OF INDUSTRIES
In South Korea, the shipbuilding industry was born in the 1970s by Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and its president Chung Ju-yung, an iconic businessman of North Korean descent who was one of the fathers of the South Korean economic miracle. Korean, until the 2000s was one of the main economic legs of the Asian country.
Its price competitiveness and growing technical capacity to build supercarriers and supertankers have made HHI move from being a national leader to being one of the dominators of the global market, a position it aims to strengthen with its plans. to take over Daewoo Shipbulging & Marine Engineering.
These two groups and Samsung Heavy Industries had a combined turnover of 28.8 trillion in profits (approximately $ 25.48 billion) in 2020, and 9 of the largest 15 supercarrier models in the world left their construction sites. naval.
In the case of Chinese shipowners, their expansion has been coupled with the country’s growth in production and export power in recent decades and has been made possible by state support.
Created in the early 1980s with a significant component of military objectives and sanctioned last year by the United States for its alleged ties to the Chinese military, the aforementioned Chinese colossus CSSC intends to have another 400-meter-long mega-ship ready. of 23,000 containers.
According to its website, its customers are companies from Germany, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Hong Kong, Greece, the United States, Japan or France.