BY THE year 2000 the container liner industry could be dominated by just five mega carriers and/or global groupings controlling well over a quarter of a million teu of shipboard slots. These are the findings of UK-based Container- isation International magazine's latest annual survey of the world's leading containership operators.
In ranking the top 20 carriers on the basis of slots (teus deployed), CI identified that a player in the top league needs to have a minimum of 50 000 teus (see table). But arguably, to be a genuine global operator with a presence in both the east/west and north/south trades, that capacity threshold rises to 250 000 teus.
The report was conducted before the announced merger of P&O Nedlloyd whose joint size on the basis of slots deployed amounts to 217 357, placing them at the top of the league.
Top 20 container service operators as of September 1, 1996
Operator/vessel size Total teus Total teus in service on order Evergreen Line/Uniglory Marine Corp 205 224 79 928 Sea-Land Service 203 244 18 348 Maersk Line 199 479 73 500 Cosco 183 726 61 936 NYK Line/TSK Line 129 731 41 065 Mitsui OSK Lines 126 415 Nedlloyd Lines 117 114 Hanjin Shipping 115 815 40 050 Mediterranean Shipping Company 114 160 P&O Containers 100 243 34 696 Hyundai Merchant Marine 97 652 25 180 Zim Israel Navigation 92 772 17 000 Hapag-Lloyd 85 722 13 266 K Line 83 634 APL 81 262 Yangming Marine Transport 81 229 Neptune Orient Lines/PUL 77 937 26 400 OOCL 76 419 15 920 DSR-Senator Lines 70 908 29 542 CMA 53 229 32 060
