Ships of Danish liner giant Maersk Line will continue to slow steam despite predictions that lower oil and bunker prices will prompt liner companies to speed up.
According to Maersk CEO, Nils S. Andersen there is not a lot of potential for speeding up taking into account the number of giant ships already in place.
The recent period has seen some smaller companies opting for higher speeds and releasing more capacity into the global fleet.
However, Andersen believes that speeding up would bring no advantage to anyone, stressing that, ultimately, it would be detrimental to profitability.
Andersen also toned down forecasts on adding of considerable capacity to the liner’s fleet, saying that not as much capacity will be added as certain predictions claim. There were no further details disclosed on the matter.
Speaking of potential rate drop against lower oil prices, Andersen said that it was realistic to assume that there will be a rate decline already in the first part of 2015.
The 2M Alliance is off to a good start, as customers seem to have received the service very well, and, looking ahead, no negative developments in this respect are expected, according to Andersen.
Nevertheless, it is too early to declare victory, he added while speaking during a teleconference on the group’s 2014 annual results .
When asked whether the drop in reliability of its 2M Partner, MSC, might influence the overall reliability level of the two, the group’s CFO, Trond Westlie said that the two plan to work on keeping a high level of reliability.
Maersk Line was once again the most reliable carrier, recording an average on-time performance of 76% in January, virtually unchanged from December, according to Drewry. However, the reliability of MSC fell to lower than average level.
World Maritime News Staff