Two carriers going jumbo

News-in-print 1 Jan 2018 by WCN Editorial

It seems that ‘jumboisation’, which involves inserting new holds amidships, is back in fashion. Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and CMA CGM are the latest carriers to adopt this lower-cost and faster-delivery mechanism to increase their slot capacity. It was a popular concept during the 1980s and early 1990s, and has been used successfully by Maersk Line over the past couple of years

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MSC’s plan involves lengthening 11 of its 14,000 TEU ships from 365m to 394m by inserting a 30m mid-section, equivalent to two 40ft bays, and increasing their carrying capacity by 21% to 17,000 TEU.

The carrier has appointed Qingdaobased Beihai Shipbuilding to undertake the work, which also involves raising the vessels’ accommodation blocks and lashing bridges, thus allowing higher deck stows. But MSC is also optimising cargo carrying capabilities on as many as 31 other ships with MacGregor, part of Cargotec, scheduled to complete this work by the end of 2018.

CMA CGM is also using Beihai Shipbuilding for its ship-lengthening project. It involves 10 slightly smaller ships of 13,800 TEU. Their capacity will also be increased to 17,000 TEU.

Neither carrier has divulged the costs of the jumboisation and ship upgrade programmes.

In addition to these jumboisation projects, MSC and CMA CGM have backlogs of orders for new ultra large container vessels. MSC’s contracts with South Korea-based Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy
Industries involve 11 x 22,000 TEU ships. CMA CGM’s deals are with Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding and HudongZhonghua Shipbuilding and are for nine vessels of a similar size.

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This complete item is approximately 300 words in length and appeared in the January 2018 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 11. To access this issue download the PDF here.