The Japanese freighter that blocked the Suez Canal is outnumbered by the new mega-ships leaving Asian shipyards, which experts say pose increasing risks to the maritime transport industry.
With a length of 400 meters and a capacity of nearly 220,000 tons, the main vessel in the incident, the Ever Given, is just the tip of the iceberg in a sector led by Korean and Chinese companies, the trend of which points to increasing scale online with the rise of international trade.
The capacity of container ships has increased by 1,500% since they came into service more than half a century ago. In the past decade alone, freight potential has doubled, according to data from German financial and insurance group Allianz Global.
BIGGER, MORE DANGEROUS
“Building ships just for economies of scale is no longer enough,” said Rahul Khanna, Allianz’s global maritime risk consultant, who sees “a clear gap” between the exponential expansion of ships and the speed at which measures are implemented.
The shipowners of South Korea and China are leading this “arms race” and by 2020, according to official data and British consultancy Clarkson, by 2020 they had shared 43% and 41% of the world market of orders for the sector respectively.
Today’s five largest mega freighter models, largely operational since 2020, are all manufactured in South Korea and their capacity ranges between 23,000 and 24,000 TEU, well above Ever Given, giving a sense of where they are going. Runs the sector.
Last January, the largest commercial shipbuilder in the world, China State Shipbuiding Corporation (CSSC), delivered to French logistics company CMA CGM a mega freighter with a capacity of up to 23,000 containers, which is about 3,000 more than Ever Given’s capacity.
The new vessel, 400 meters long and 61 wide, was the fifth of the same features delivered to that company since September, when the Jacques Saade vessel became the world’s first 23,000 container freighter powered by natural gas smoothie, according to CSSC.
Among the dangers of these huge ships, Khanna said, are the greater difficulties in accidents such as fires or collisions, their greater exposure to extreme weather or strandings such as those once seen in Egypt’s seaway, Khanna said.
LESSONS FROM SUEZ
The blockade of the Suez Canal caused the maritime transport industry to lose between $ 12 and $ 15 million a day, according to initial estimates, although it has also taught some lessons.
The ports and canals “are not always sufficiently developed” to accommodate oversized ships and in some cases they have become “relatively narrow” and significantly reduced “the room for maneuver and the margin of error,” said the aforementioned captain and maritime. risk consultant.
In addition, many ports “do not have sufficient infrastructure to deal with mega-ships if something goes wrong,” the expert emphasizes, adding that “other rescue operations of this type have taken much longer than ever given.”
The Suez crisis has sparked debate as to whether the size of sea channels such as this one or the one in Panama could ultimately limit the size of cargo ships, and whether the necessary additional infrastructure development could undermine profitability. Even bigger mega ships.
According to Khanna, the Ever Green incident will “not be enough to halt the growth” of these ships, which will continue to grow as long as risk prevention measures in infrastructures, maritime operators and ship owners are updated.
EXPANDING INDUSTRIES
In South Korea, the shipbuilding industry was born in the 1970s by Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and its president Chung Ju-yung, an iconic DPRK-born businessman who was one of the founders of South Korea until the 2000s. economic miracle. was one of the Asian country’s most important economic legs.
The competitiveness of its prices and its growing technical capacity to build supercarriers and super tankers has enabled HHI to grow from a national leader to one of the dominant players in the global market, a position it aims to strengthen with its plans to acquire Daewoo Shipbulging & Marine to take over. Engineering.
Those two groups and Samsung Heavy Industries had gained combined sales of 28.8 trillion (about $ 25.48 billion) in 2020, and 9 of the 15 largest supercarrier models in the world left their shipyards.
In the case of Chinese shipowners, their expansion has been linked to the country’s growth as a manufacturing and export power over the past decades, and also made possible by state aid.
The aforementioned Chinese behemoth CSSC was established in the early 1980s with a significant portion of its military objectives and sanctioned by the United States last year for its alleged ties to the Chinese military, and plans another 400 meters here. mega ship ready to have. month. and capacity of 23,000 containers.
According to its website, its clients are companies from Germany, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Hong Kong, Greece, the United States, Japan or France.