Analyst predicts that 15 000 TEU ships are not far off

THE AGE of 15000 teu (twenty foot equivalent units) vessels is not far off if a German analyst's predictions are to be believed.
According to Dr Hans Payer, who has been studying the rapid increase in the size of container vessels due to market demand, manufacturers are not too far away from constructing 12 000 TEU and even 15 000 TEU vessels.
Quoted on the Internet news service Schednet, Dr Payer says the only limitations to the construction of the mega vessels would be the lack of suitable channel depths at major ports around the world.
Dr Payer, of German classification society Germanischer Lloyd, sees the rapid increase in vessel size as a symptom of liner operators' ambitions to optimise the economy-of-scale opportunities that exist in the market today.