Evergreen cutting capacity, Yang Ming considering

Evergreen and Yang Ming have apparently figured out things are NOT getting better any time soon.

Evergreen has already taken steps to cut their fleet by about 1/6th, and Yang Ming is considering putting ships in "hot lay-up". They really should be looking at cold lay-up, but time will tell.

This from Lloyd's List

EVERGREEN Marine, Taiwan’s largest liner company, has confirmed it will either scrap or redeliver back to owners 31 boxships up to 26 years old in a programme that will continue until 2013.

Evergreen spokeswoman Katherine Ko told Lloyd’s List the programme started at the end of last year or earlier this year.

Ms Ko said chartered-in tonnage would be returned at the end of the charter period with no early redeliveries.

Evergreen operated a combined owned and chartered-in fleet of 180 ships and the disposals would represent about a sixth of the Evergreen fleet, she said.

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Yang Ming Marine Transport also confirmed that it was mulling the possibility of putting 10 boxships operated by both itself and other members of the CKYH Alliance into hot lay-up at the end of this year.

A Yang Ming spokesman told Dow Jones: “We are concerned demand on US and Europe routes will be weak in the fourth quarter.”

click here for complete article

Ocean Carriers Reducing Capacity

Five Ocean Carriers are joining together in a Vessel Sharing Agreement which will reduce the capacity between Asia and Australia.

As reported in the Journal of Commerce

"(This) cooperation will result in a net capacity reduction equivalent to 800 TEUs per week, or 3.2 percent of total trade capacity. Significant cost increases and poor freight rates both south- and northbound have made this step necessary."

Click here for complete article.

Evergreen will be joining the already existing VSA as report in the Hamburg-Sued press release.

"Hamburg, 1 October 2008. APL, Hamburg Süd, Hapag-Lloyd and Hyundai
Merchant Marine have decided to team up with Evergreen in the trade
between North East Asia and Australia. With this cooperation the four
AAS partners (Asia Australia Services) together with Evergreen will
jointly provide one of the most comprehensive service networks in the
trade with two fixed-day weekly service loops with the following
ports of call:

Northern Loop: Yokohama - Osaka - Pusan - Qingdao - Shanghai - Ningbo
- Melbourne - Sydney - Brisbane - Yokohama
Southern Loop: Kaohsiung - Yantian - Hong Kong - Melbourne - Sydney -
Brisbane - Kaohsiung"

Expect to see more of this type of rationalization in all trades as business slows.