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SHIPPING What's Going on With Shipping? ... Tonnage Tsunami: Can Ports Withstand the Ultra-Large Containership Surge? Original article:
Tonnage Tsunami: Can Ports Withstand the Ultra-Large Containership Surge? What's Going on With Shipping? October 30, 2025 561K subscribers ... 343,196 views ... 8K likes What's Going on With Shipping - Maritime Industry Today Ultra Large Surge In this episode, Sal Mercogliano — a maritime historian at Campbell University (@campbelledu) and former merchant mariner — discusses the expected surge in Ultra-Large Containerships (those over 18,000 TEUs) and what this means for ports and the supply chain. #supplychain #shipping #containerships Support What's Going on With Shipping via: Patreon: www.patreon.com/wgowshipping Twitter: @mercoglianos Bluesky: @mercoglianos.bsky.social Facebook: @wgowshipping Email: mercoglianosal@gmail.com Tonnage tsunami: can ports withstand the ULC surge? https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1155280/... Martin Stopford, Maritime Economics https://archive.org/details/maritime-... The Geography of Transport Systems https://transportgeography.org/ Explore the podcast Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 On this episode of What's Going On with Shipping, ultra-large container ships are surging into the world's ports. I'm your host, Sal Maglaniano. Welcome to today's episode. So, back in February of 2024, I did this video. Why no ships to the United States? This was referring to ultra-large container ships, ships greater than 16,000 TEU or 20 foot equivalent units. Most containers you see are 40footers, FEUs. But the specific issue here was the diversion that was happening due to the Houthis sending container ships around the Cape of Good Hope. And what you see here very pronounced in this image is how the ultra-large container ships are sailing almost exclusively from Asia to Europe. And I broke it down in that video. However, we have this story that just came out from Lloyd's list. Linton Nightingale tonnage tsunami. Can ports withstand the ULC surge? Ultra-large container ships in service are set to double within the next 5 years, many 1:02 exceeding 18,000 TEUs. Vessels cascading 1:05 will push an increasing number of 1:07 midsize ships into mediary trades, 1:10 overwhelming the secondary ports, and 1:12 port infrastructure is struggling to 1:14 keep pace with vessel growth. Earth 1:16 theft, train reach, and yard space are 1:18 under strain. I think it's time we go 1:20 back and look at this story and break it 1:22 down. So, if you're new to the channel, 1:24 take a moment, subscribe to the channel, 1:25 and hit the bell so be alerted about new 1:27 videos as they come out. Now, first, 1:29 let's define what we mean by ultra large 1:32 containership. This chart is from Jean 1:34 Paul Rodrigue and his transport 1:36 geography. I'll have the link below so 1:38 you can take a look at it. What Jean 1:40 Paul has looked at here is the evolution 1:42 and growth of container ships. And he 1:44 breaks them down into six kind of 1:46 distinct groups. First, you have the 1:49 very early container ships. These are 1:50 ships carrying several hundred to just a 1:52 few thousand container ships. But by the 1:56 1980s, we reached a kind of a plateau 1:59 there. This was known as the Panamax 2:00 vessels. These were the ships that were 2:02 the biggest that could go through the 2:04 Panama Canal. Uh initially, it was 2:06 around 3,000 TEU, but through some 2:08 changes of hull form, able to get the 2:10 ships up to about 4500 TEU. Then in the 2:14 late 80s, there was a decision made, 2:16 maybe we just don't go through the 2:17 Panama Canal. And so they build what was 2:19 called the post panamax. And once you go 2:21 post panamax, really the size is the 2:24 limit here. You can go any as big as you 2:26 want. And what we saw was ships jump 2:28 from 6,000 TEU up to 8,500 TEU. Then in 2:32 the early 2000s, Marque started off this 2:35 kind of arms race of containers ship 2:38 construction with the Maris Sclass. And 2:42 what you have is a ship that can carry 2:43 almost 11,000 TEU. Then in the mid2010s 2:48 they unveiled the triple E. These are 2:51 the ultra-large container ships. These 2:53 are over 18,000 TEU. And then by the end 2:56 of the 2010s we got the Megaax 24s. 3:00 These are the ships capable of carrying 3:01 anywhere from 21,000 to 25,000 TEUs. 3:06 Just just absolutely massive. 24 3:09 containers across in 24 bays stacked 25 3:13 high. uh just absolute behemoths. And 3:16 then we actually retrograded a bit to 3:18 what were known as the new or neopanax 3:21 vessels. These were the ships that could 3:23 go through the new lane of the Panama 3:25 Canal opened in 2016. Initially, these 3:28 ships were sized at about 12,500 TU, but 3:31 we've seen ships go through the new lane 3:33 at about 15 and 16,000 TEU. And really, 3:38 we think we've hit the limit. Although, 3:40 I will say there are bigger ships 3:42 planned. The ultra-large container ships 3:45 which are basically 400 meters long are 3:48 restricted by the Suez Canal. Well, 3:50 we're not going through the Suez Canal. 3:52 And there are proposals out there to 3:54 extend the ships 50 to another 100 m. 3:57 That'd be 450 to 500 m long. That means 4:01 may not be 24,000 TEU, but 27 or 31,000 4:07 TEU. So, we're talking about massive 4:09 growth in the size of ships. Now the 4:13 size of ships limits where you can go. 4:16 There are obviously limitations for 4:17 coming into port. You need draft. You 4:20 need, you know, deep water. You need 4:22 aird draft. You got to get under 4:23 bridges. And more importantly, you need 4:25 the cranes and the yard space to be able 4:28 to handle them. Your normal ship toshore 4:30 cranes initially couldn't reach out 4:32 across 24 stacks. So you needed higher 4:35 cranes and longer cranes to do this. And 4:38 ports were racing to this. You know, in 4:40 the leadup to the opening of the Panama 4:42 Canal's new lane in 2016, the Gulf and 4:45 East Coast ports of the United States 4:46 were expanding greatly. Over in Europe, 4:49 they were racing to accommodate these 4:51 ultra-large container ships. And what 4:53 does that mean? Well, let's go to marine 4:55 traffic and take a look. So, I cleaned 4:57 up marine traffic, and what you see here 4:59 are just container ships. These are the 5:01 world's container ships heading out 5:03 there. So, you can see container ships 5:04 going across the Trans-Pacific. They're 5:06 heading pretty south right now because 5:08 of the high weather. They don't go up 5:10 around Alaska right now because of the 5:11 rough weather due to the wintertime. Uh 5:13 they're taking their route heading 5:15 around Australia, New Zealand. They take 5:17 that southern route around Australia. 5:19 They're heading across the the Indian 5:21 Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope. 5:23 They're heading to India. They're 5:24 heading up in the Persian Gulf. They are 5:25 not going into the Red Sea as we see 5:27 here. Uh because of the Houthi, they're 5:30 coming around the Cape of Good Hope, 5:31 heading up into the Mediterranean and up 5:33 into Northern Europe. And then we have 5:35 ships coming on the trans-Pacific route 5:37 here, coming into the Panama Canal, 5:40 heading across the Pacific into Asia, 5:43 either to Chile or that big new mega 5:45 port in Peru, heading into the LA Long 5:47 Beach complex or through the Panama 5:50 Canal to the Gulf and East Coast. Now, 5:52 let's take this and clean this up and 5:55 let's look at those ultra-large 5:57 container ships. So, we set our shipping 5:59 TEU capacity to over 18,000 TEU. And 6:04 what we see here is every ship over 6:06 18,000 TEU is heading from Europe to 6:10 Asia except for one. There is one ship 6:14 that isn't the MSE Ela heading across 6:17 from Korea, from Busousan, heading over 6:19 to Long Beach. That's it. Every other 6:22 ship is in Asia heading across through 6:25 the Indian Ocean. A couple up here in 6:27 the Persian Gulf heading up in that 6:28 area. Some are in and around the 6:30 Mediterranean. Some up here in Western 6:33 Europe. A couple up here heading up into 6:35 the Baltic as we see. But that's it. 6:38 That's where you see it. And the reason 6:40 is the ultra-large container ships are 6:42 the epitome of efficiency. They are big. 6:46 uh they tend to go from large terminals 6:50 in Asia where they're outloading 6:53 to trans shshipment points in the 6:56 Mediterranean in West Africa and in 6:58 Europe. You offload these 24,000 TU 7:01 ships and then you take them and put 7:03 them into smaller feeder ships or into 7:05 the inland system. The reason they don't 7:08 come to the United States has to do with 7:10 the geography and the nature of the 7:12 cargo coming into the United States. 7:15 back over to marine traffic. We cleared 7:17 out our TEU, so we're getting all 7:18 different types of vessels. So, when you 7:20 come across the Trans-Pacific, the West 7:23 Coast of the United States is different 7:25 than the East and Gulf Coast. You only 7:26 have a few ports on the West Coast. 7:28 You've got the mega complex in LA, Long 7:30 Beach. You've got Oakland, you've got 7:32 Seattle, Tacoma, you got Vancouver, and 7:35 you got Prince Rupert up here in 7:36 Northern Canada. But the key here is LA 7:39 and Long Beach. The vast majority of 7:41 cargo coming to LA and Long Beach. Why 7:43 LA and Long Beach? Well, there's a 7:45 massive population concentration there. 7:47 And then if you want to get into the 7:49 interior of the United States, you want 7:50 to go into LA and Long Beach cuz the 7:52 rail can take the southern route south 7:54 of the Rockies, not worry about the 7:56 incline and get into the transportation 8:00 rail system that is the Midwest, Texas, 8:02 Dallas, uh up into uh St. Louis to 8:05 Chicago to Kansas City and get to that 8:08 population that is spread east of a line 8:11 from Minnesota to Texas. And so when you 8:14 go into LA and Long Beach, you tend to 8:17 offload the vast majority of your cargo. 8:19 Almost anywhere from 50 to 100% of cargo 8:23 is offloaded. When you come to the Gulf 8:26 or East Coast, you go to three or four 8:28 ports. That means you offload anywhere 8:30 from 20 to 40% of your cargo. And so 8:33 what you don't want to do is bring a 8:35 18,000 TEU ship into LA and it sits 8:39 there for a week. Now, I hear you 8:41 already screaming in the channel. Well, 8:43 the reason it sits there a week is the 8:45 inefficiency of the unions. And if we 8:47 only automated the ports, it wouldn't be 8:49 a problem. No, it's not it. Because the 8:52 problem is this. You could work the LA 8:54 port 24/7. We have automation in LA and 8:57 Long Beach. The problem you have is once 9:00 you put that box on the ground, you've 9:02 got to get into the inland distribution 9:04 system. Well, guess what? truck, rail, 9:07 and warehouses are not running 247. If I 9:10 put that in a back of a tractor trailer 9:12 and I go to a warehouse, it's not going 9:13 to open till six. Doesn't do me any good 9:15 to 247. So, you got to have the whole 9:18 system running 24/7. We learned this 9:20 during the global supply chain crisis. 9:22 The other issue you have is on the east 9:24 and west coast ports 9:26 is if you bring those behemoths in there 9:29 to offload, they're going to overwhelm 9:30 the terminals because the terminals are not that big. You're going to put a lot of containers on. Plus, a lot of shippers, those who ship cargo, would rather have smaller ships come in more frequently than larger ships coming in less frequently. You know, if I have a 24,000 TEU ship, I would rather have three 8,000 TEU ships come in, you know, once a week than one 24,000 come in once every 3 weeks. If I if I'm the if I'm the the carrier, the the guy who operates the ship, yeah, I want to have 10:00 that one ship come in because it's efficiency. two less crew, fuel efficiency, port charges are less. It's just more money for me. But you have to give the service that's required, and it's one of the reasons we see that. Now, Linton notes this in his article. Global ports are bracing for a wave of ultra-large containers ships that have the potential to overwhelm infrastructure and supply chains. With ports under increasing strain at the hands of the industry behemoths and supply chain still fragile, the industry faces a race against time to adapt. another black swan event could turn today's congestion into tomorrow's crisis. This is 100% true because we have seen instances where uh a black swan event can cause catastrophe evergiven in the Suez. We had Dolly in Baltimore. But there are some other ones that we've talked about on this channel that many people don't know. Mask Suraya coming into Savannah nearly blocked the channel into Savannah. APL Chingda coming out of New 11:01 York nearly blocked the channel in the kills going into Staten Island and into New Jersey. So, do you want to have these large vessels come in and potentially block your port? Now, Linton provides a series of charts and graphs that really convey this in a very efficient manner. So, he takes a snapshot from 2015 to 2025 looking at the third quarter. And if you go back to 2015, there's just maybe about 475 ships operating in the service. In 2025, it is almost 600 ships operating in the service. But it's the composition that has changed. The vast majority of ships in 2015 are ships under 5,000 and those between 5 and 10,000. So probably the average size we're looking at is a ship right around 56,000 TEU in 2015. Fast forward to 2025. Well, the almost half the ships are under 10,000 TEU. What you 12:02 see is ships between 10 and 15,000. Ships between 15 and 18,000 that started entering the ch the trade back in 2020 and then just a really tiny sliver of ships just over 18,000 to 21,000 in 2025. This means that the size of the ships is changing. It also means that capacity is changing. Go back to 2015, capacity was just under 3 million. Today, it's at roughly 5 million with most of that capacity in the hands of the larger ships, ships over 10,000 TEU. If you look at the Asia to Europe deployment, these are ships that are coming from Asia to the Middle East and Indian subcontinent and over to Europe. What you see here is a change in the makeup of that fleet. So the number of ships was just over 300 in 2015. It dipped going into 2020, but now has grown and roughly about 450 ships coming in. But 13:03 again, look at that change. Vast majority of the ships were under 15,000 TEU in 2015. Today, the majority are over 15,000 TEU. And when you look at capacity, it has increased from just under four million TEU to almost 7 million TEU. And the vast majority of that 7 million TEU is in carried in ships over 18,000 TEU. So that means that more ships are coming to Europe and those ships are bigger and and that to me is particularly significant. We're having about 5 million TEU capacity coming in the Trans-Pacific, about 7 million on the Asia to Europe run. So, if you go back and look at the chart for Europe, notice how the feeder ships less than 5,000 TEU are growing starting in 2021. That tells me that these big ships are coming in. They're offloading in the big trans shshipment hubs and then we're using smaller ships to kind of hub and 14:02 spoke it out to the smaller areas. That's what we see happening. Now that does not happen in the United States for a couple of reasons. Uh that hub and spoke method would have to be done with Jones Act ships, ships built in the United States that can meet the inner uh that can meet the uh uh requirements for cababotage. The other reason you don't want to see in the United States is no one wants to pay port handling charges twice in the United States because it's expensive to operate in and around the United States ports. Now, that may change. Again, what we're starting to see is more of those ships coming around Africa. So, we may start seeing those vessels coming in. Plus, if you can set up a large port on the east and Gulf Coast, Savannah, Charleston, Port of Virginia, for example, they can accept those. Matter of fact, the Port of Virginia is aiming to do that. They want to take in these ultra-large container ships. And then what they want to do is dump them in Virginia and then send the stuff into the inland system. That may be a way to make it work. The problem is 15:00 the ship is going to be in port for a long time and do you have the capacity to do that? When you start looking at the container ship order book right now, look at the number of ships that are on order. Vast majority of ships on order right now are over 14,000 TEU. Uh you have less ships that are being ordered smaller than that. So definitely seeing that. And more importantly, when you look at the uh number of vessels here, look at that spike. We're going to see a lot of 18,000 plus TEU ships delivered starting in 2026, this massive spike in 2028. Now, you're not seeing the ships that were delivered before that. We had a spike in 2023, 2024 with that was that orders that were being put in because of the supply chain surge. Container ship companies were ordering a lot of vessels and you tend to order these much larger ships earlier, so they're on there. So, we're definitely going to see that. But that takes us back to Linton's article and his conclusion. So Linton goes to the guru of shipping, Martin Stoppford. 16:01 Now, I got to say Stopford is a huge I'm a huge fan of Stopford. He wrote um uh Maritime Economics, which is the Bible of shipping. The third edition, the 2007 edition is out there. You can download the PDF. I'll have the link in the show notes for you. Uh Martin gave a comment to Linton which I am upset about because he needs to be writing the fourth edition. We need the fourth edition of this book. So Martin stop giving comments and and and write type get there writing. But he does say this. Uh he offered a sobering assessment arguing their operational inefficiencies especially their time spent in port. Uh despite their continued order, he believes the upward trend vessel size has peaked and failed to deliver on its promise. Now this happened in tankers. We got way big on tankers. We had uh very large crude carriers. We had ultra-large crude carriers. So from a 100,000 dead weight tons to 200,000 dead weight tons. We got up to 500,000 dead weight tons. They just became unproductive. We're kind of seeing that 17:00 in the passenger ship trade right now 17:02 with the growth of passenger ships of, 17:04 you know, from from several hundred to 17:06 several thousand. We're like at 5,000 to 17:09 7,000 passengers. Are we seeing the same 17:11 thing in container ships? Stopford 17:14 warned that geopolitical shifts too are 17:16 pushing cargo into smaller medium-sized 17:18 ports that lack the infrastructure to 17:20 cope with the surging volumes. He then 17:23 says this, and I I got to say I got a 17:25 little bit of a hesitation with Martin 17:26 saying this quote, 'In other words, you 17:28 do what McKenzie always said you were 17:30 supposed to do with containerization. 17:32 You have some very big distribution 17:34 centers like Rotterdam. You stick all 17:36 the containers from Mexico, Malaysia, or 17:38 whatever it is on a small ship and take 17:40 it to the final destination, which might 17:42 be somewhere like Aberdine or Newcastle 17:44 or anywhere in Northwest Europe. This 17:47 approach, he estimated, could reduce 17:48 carbon emissions by 40 to 60%. Well, 17:50 number one, don't ever listen to 17:52 McKenzie. I mean, I'm sorry, but that's 17:54 a a sure proof disaster right there 17:57 happening there because they're going to 17:59 give you whatever answer they want. But 18:00 I I do have a question about that because what he's talking about is is the idea of what we're seeing right now, these huge trans shipment points. You know, the reason Roderdam and Felix Stowe and Shanghai and Singapore have these huge volume numbers in containers, it's because they're trans shipments. They they they offload a container and then load the container. When you look at US ports, you offload into the ports and then you go into the interior. They're they're egress and ingress points. They are not hubs. And that's a big difference. He goes on here to say he acknowledged that carriers are now locked into the ultra-large carrier future. What this future looks like will depend on how the industry responds to the challenge of accommodating larger vessels. How successful they become in developing more additive port ecosystems capable of managing scale. If these adjustments fall short, localized congestion may become routine as vessel cues grow. With supply chains already strained, another disruptive event, geopolitical, environmental, or economic, could swiftly push ports from 19:00 disruption to paralysis. And I I think that is true no matter what. Uh whether we have ultra-large containers ships or not, I think ultra-large containers ships just make it more significant. If you shut down Felix Stowe, if you shut down Alerus, if you shut down Singapore, what does that mean? It's going to be a massive disruption. This is my fear about creating new ultra-large ports in places like West Africa, which is inherently unstable right now. And the United States can accept ultra-large containers ships. I think we'll see ultra-large containers ships eventually come to the United States. Uh, you know, the draft the the the the requirements are there. The question is, are they economically viable? the Newport in Peru that the Chinese have developed will be an ultra-large container hub that will distribute containers out among the Americas in that system. I just don't think it works in the United States. Again, a couple of reasons. Number one, the higher port charges in the United 20:01 States because of American labor. Second, you would require feeder ships to be US flagged uh capable of meeting the Jones Act, which can be done, which may be an interesting model that this new ship building aspect should look at. I've actually advocated for that. I think we need to build some container ships into this market to have this. You just need to do something to defay the uh the cost to build these ships. Uh but the model right now is you're going to see these ultraarges stay on the Asia to Europe route almost exclusively. But the Houthis have demonstrated the disruptions are possible. Back in February 2024, we talked about it. It is as applicable today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, hey, take a moment, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell to be alerted about new videos as they come out. Leave a comment, share it across social media, and if you can support the page, how do you do that? that you hit the super thanks button down below or head on over to Patreon and become a monthly or yearly subscriber. Hey, if you are a 21:00 subscriber, just do me a favor. I know I say this once in a while, check that you are still subscribed. I had a big drop in subscribers. This happens periodically with YouTube. They clean out bots and everything like that, so I'm not concerned about it, but I know at times they do drop people who have subscribed to the channel. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Until our next episode, this is S signing

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