Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest container shipping company, plans to carry out a historic renewal of its feeder container ship fleet, which will lead to a massive shipbuilding plan and continue its container ship ordering boom.
According to shipping broker Braemar, MSC is preparing a “mega project” to order 120 container ships ranging in size from 1,100 TEU to 5,000 TEU.
Braema analyzed that based on MSC’s fleet situation, the average age of its feeder container ship fleet is 22 years. Therefore, the main purpose of the newbuilding plan is to replace existing aging ships. If the orders are officially placed, the new ships will be delivered in about three years, which means that the average age of the existing fleet will reach about 25 years. Therefore, MSC’s newbuilding plan is reasonable.
As the world’s largest liner shipowner, MSC will become the first shipping company to break the 7 million TEU mark in the coming months. According to Alphaliner data, MSC’s total fleet capacity has reached 6.6 million TEU. Over the past decade, the company has nearly tripled its fleet size through large-scale new ship construction plans and historic entry into the second-hand ship market.
In addition to feeder container ships, MSC also has strong shipbuilding needs in the field of large ships. This year, it has ordered dozens of large container ships from many Chinese shipyards, including Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, Zhoushan Changhong International, Hengli Heavy Industries, China Merchants Industry Qingdao Shipyard and China Merchants Heavy Industries Haimen Base.
In addition to container ships, MSC’s ferry operator Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV) has also ordered four new LNG-powered ro-pax vessels from Guangzhou Shipyard International.
With the expansion of MSC’s fleet, Switzerland, a landlocked country, has become one of the world’s major shipowning countries. Online pricing platform VesselsValue released its annual list of the world’s top ten shipowning countries ranked by total asset value in January, with Switzerland successfully ranking ninth thanks to MSC’s container ship and cruise ship fleets.