Follow Ups

 Several posts during the last week are in need of follow up, so this post combines three updates.

Update#1 Oceanex (from November 30)

Oceanex Sanderling arrived back in Halifax today (December 4) after making an extra trip to St.John's this week. The ship made Autoport its first stop, then moved to PSA Halifax. It is due to sailagain early tomorrow (Sunday) morning, about 36 hours later than its usual Friday sailing.

 Unique among container ships, Oceanex Sanderling carries 53 foot containers, both its own (blue) Oceanex boxes but those of other cariers such as Canadian Tire (a national hardware, houseware and auto supply chain).

Road wash outs in western Newfoundland delayed truck traffic to and from the island last week, and Oceanex took up some of the cargo by making a quick mid-week trip to Halifax and back to St.John's. Competitor Marine Atlantic was forced to shift its Newfoundland terminal from Port aux Basques to Argentia for a few days until damaged roads and bridges could be repaired. At one point there were 200 trucks waiting on the mainland side. 

Oceanex makes connections with container lines in Halifax so making an extra trip can mess up its normal schedule for coordinating with other same day callers. However the urgency of getting cargo to and from Newfoundland was more important.

Update #2 Kitikmeot W. (from December 2)

The Canadian-owned product tanker Kitikmeot W. did indeed change its registration while in Halifax this week. It sailed this evening under the Marshall Island's flag, with no destination given at first, but eventually showing Quebec City.

The ship is now registered in the port of Majuro while it works overseas for the winter on a bareboat charter arrrangement. The ship's history is quite plain to see on the stern with the previous registry ports of Istanbul, Turkey and St.John's, Newfoundland, still visible under layers of paint. 

The ship will likely return to Canadian flag in late May or early June 2022 in time for next year's northern supply work.

Update #3 MSC (from December 3)

Kotor Bay sailed this afternoon for Norfolk on MSC's Indus 2 service. As stated in the post, the majority of MSC's fleet is chartered. When the sun hit the ship's side at the right angle the name of its previous charter was highlighted.

 

The ship was built in 2009 for charter to Hyundai as Hyundai Loyalty and carried the name for twelve years. Charters of up to 18 years or more have been negotiated recently, and such arrangements are a common feature of container shipping. Charters allow operators to expand their fleet without actually financing or buying the ship. It is also a way for shipowners to find work for their ships without having to run a container line.

One interesting thing to note from today's photo is the complete absence of containers from any other container lines. There are boxes from leasing companies, but all the labelled containers appear to be MSC. This is a reflection of MSC's general independence and its policy of organic growth versus acquistion of other lines. By contrast Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd ships are usually a crazy quilt of containers bearing the names of past purchases or alliance partners.

Speaking of Maersk and CMA CGM, there is no ship scheduled for the Canada Atlantic Express (CAE) this weekend, but EM Kea is en route from Montreal giving Monday, December 6 as an arrival date instead of the usual Saturday call. It was likely delayed westbound by the bad weather earlier in the week.

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Kotor Bay in for MSC

MSC's weekly Indus 2 service brought in its eighth ship today (December 3). So far all the ships on the service have been new to Halifax and Kotor Bay is no exception. Built in 2009 by Hyundai Samho as Hyundai Loyalty it was renamed in February of 2021.

 It is a 94,479 gt, 95,810 dwt ship with a capacity of 8562 TEU. The ship arrived off Halifax November 29, which was its scheduled arrival day. However it remained at anchor, hove to or steaming about until this morning. That allowed the seventh ship on the service, MSC Silvana, to clear. It had been due November 18 but was delayed - largely due to weather.

When the Indus 2 weekly service from northwest India began its Halifax calls with the arrival of MSC Stella on October 5, it was reported that there would be eight ships on the rotation. It appears that some of the earlier ships will not be back, and other ships have been assigned. All are to be of the 8500 TEU size.

Several sources have declared that MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) has just passed Maersk as the world's largest container shipping company, or will do so by the end of the month. No matter who is correct, it is certainly an impressive achievement, and maybe a risky gamble.

MSC has been on a ship buying spree, since August 2020 purchasing 125 second hand ships. It currently has about 1 million TEUs of ships on order from shipyards. Its current fleet represents 633 ships of 4,239,668 TEUs. The majority of the ships are chartered. For example the above mentioned Kotor Bay which is part of the Eastern Pacific Shipping Pte fleet - one of the Ofer companies.

Maersk on the other hand has 729 ships in its fleet, totaling 4,234,302 TEU. (as of November 24, 2021). Maersk has a very small order book and is not projecting great growth in its fleet. Maersk also owns the majority of the ships in its fleet, but whether these are "bought and paid" or heavily financed and leveraged is not known to me.

In any event it must be a great time to be in the container business as many companies are reporting astronomical increases in returns year over year. Hapag-Lloyd for instance made more money in QI to Q3 of 2021 than it made in the previous five years combined. They are now charging $1,100 over cost to ship a container, versus $50 a year before.

One report says that the pre-pandemic August 2020 cost of shipping a container from East Asia to the US West Coast was $2,000. As of September 2021 that had grown to $20,000, however rates dropped by more than 20% in November after shippers were no longer pressing for pre-Chrsitmas deliveries to the US. The miserable schedule reliability rates (less than 50% of containers are meeting schedules) and the huge backlogs at key ports, while frustrating customers, do not seem to have diminshed the carriers profitability, or expansion plans - at least for now.

Shipping is a high stakes, high risk business, and how long MSC remains on top depends on whether Maersk decides to buy one of its competitors. That might give regulators fits since each line now controls 16.9% of the market. In any event MSC's putty coloured boxes will remain a common sight in Halifax whether on ships, trucks or rails.

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Morning and Afternoon

 There were two first time ships in Halifax today (November 30). One arrived yesterday afternoon, and one this afternoon. The combination of short daylight hours and driving rain meant that I was not able to photograph yesterday's arrival until this morning. Appropriately for a morning photo, it was the EUKOR autocarrier Morning Lucy.

The ship docked initially at Pier 31 in Halifax to unload RoRo cargo, then moved first thing this morning to Autoport to unload cars. It is on a regular Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean transatlantic Europe to North America route. 

Morning Lucy was built in 2009 by Hyundai Samho in Mokpo, South Korea. A 68,701 gt, 28,080 dwt ship it has a capacity of 8,011 cars and can also carry substantial RoRo cargo. It is owned by the cryptically named S332 International SA of Panama. (S332 is the ship's hull number assigned by the  builder). The ship's technical manager is Wilhelmsen Ship Management (Korea) Ltd and its commercial manager is Eukor Car Carriers Inc (which is owned by the four car carier companies, Wallenius, Wilhelmsen, American RoRo Carrier and United European Car Carriers).

The second "new to Halifax" ship is MSC Silvana arriving this afternoon at PSA Halifax on the Indus 2 service. It is the seventh ship to arrive on that service since it was started last month. Built in 2006 by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co, Okpo, it is a 94,489 gt, 114,115 dwt ship with a capacity of 8400 TEU. 

As the ship came in, it passed Kotor Bay which is anchored offshore and is the next ship scheduled in the Indus 2 (weekly) service. MSC Silvana was initially due November 18, and has been hove to or drifting offshore since at least November 25. Presumably PSA must handle MSC Silvana's import and export cargo before working Kotor Bay which was due November 25 on the same Indus 2 service. 

Bad weather must account for at least some of the schedule slippage. I do note that one MSC ship, the MSC Leigh, was diverted from anchorage off Halifax yesterday to Saint John to lighten its draft before heading up the St.Lawrence. I assume this was done to prevent further delays and congestion in Halifax. 
With winter soon upon us, schedules will certainly be stretched and ships may be forced to bypass Halifax altogether. 

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