Container lines continue the roller coaster ride of recent years. When shipping rates went through the roof during the height of COVID the lines made colossal profits. Now with rates in free fall, the lines are registering huge losses. Adding to the grief will be the delivery of many new ships this year and next, even as demand craters.
Maersk Line, which opted not to order new ships, is not immune from the falling profits. Not only that but it has ceded its former position as the largest container line to MSC, which continued on an acquistion spree of older ships. Both lines are now facing the situation of an over supply of capacity.
The only solution appears to be the scrap yards for older ships. MSC is delivering two or three ships a week to the scrappers, and now I see Maersk has sent a familiar ship to the demolition yard.
Maersk Patras was a regular caller to Halifax from 2011 on what is now the joint Maersk Lines / CMA CGM Canada Atlantic Express /St-Laurent 1 service. Ships on that line run weekly from Rotterdam and Antwerp to Montreal and return (via Halifax optionally) to Bremerhaven. The Maersk ships on the line were replaced earlier this year with newer ships, displaced from Baltic / Russia lines, and reassigned to other routes.
Maersk Patras was one of five sister ships built in 1998 by Kvaerner Warno Werft, Warnemunde for P+O Nedlloyd. The joint British / Dutch company, formed in 1997, was taken over in 2005 by AP Moller-Maersk's Maersk-Sealand. The merged company was renamed Maersk Lines. PONL ships were then renamed with Maersk names.
The five ex PONL 31,333 gt, 37,842 dwt ships had a capacity of 2890 TEU, including 400 reefers. Four of the five were assigned to a Canadian service, then called MMX / Montreal Mediterranean Express.
In fact the former P+O Nedlloyd Marseille, seen here on the St.Lawrence as Maersk Patras August 17, 2007, served for a time with only the Maersk colours on its funnel. Its hull was likely repainted during a regular drydocking in 2008 and again in 2013.
2013-09-21 (above) - 2018-12-04 (below)
It was repainted again in early 2018, and looked quite smart. (Note the "heritage" containers from P+O Nedlloyd, SAFMarine, Maersk Sea-Land and Hamburg-Sud in the photos. All companies taken over by Maersk.) I assume it was not repainted again in 2023 with the new style white lettering on the hull.
Sister ships P+O Nedlloyd Jakarta became Maersk Penang and is still in service, as is the formern P+O Nedlloyd Auckland, which after spell as Lykes Pioneer from 2000 to 2002, became Maersk Palermo. Another sister, P+O Nedlloyd Sydney became Maersk Pembroke and after a fire at sea was broken up in 2017. All of these ships served the St.Lawrence and Halifax route at one time. The fifth sister ship P+ONedlloyd Genoa, became Maersk Phuket and never called in Halifax. It was renamed Phuket for the trip to the breakers in 2018.
Maersk Patras, probably looking a little worse for the wear, is reported August 20, in the Bhavnagar anchorages, the last stop before beaching at the Alang scrappers, about 50 km away. (The area is on a deep inlet off the Arabian Sea called the Gulf of Khambat, north of Mumbai on the west coast of India).
.JPG)
