Borealis takes pair of 3,400 teu ships
Borealis Maritime has snapped up a pair of 3,400 teu boxships. The London-headquartered outfit has pounced for two four-year-old sister ships, the Nordic Beijing and Nordic Hong Kong.
Borealis founder Christoph Toepfer told Splash: “We do believe container freight rates have bottomed out and will provide much better profitability to container lines going forward.” He reckoned this was a direct result of the consolidation among major liners witnessed over the past 15 months.
“Tramp owners will however face another difficult year as newly merged lines consolidate their organisation and optimise utilisation of owned vessels to the detriment of chartered-in vessels,” Toepfer continued, adding: “Overall better freight rates will however allow charterers to add or expand existing services which will therefore lead in to a better chartering market. Until then many ships will continue to suffer where scrapping remains the only alternative. We therefore expect and also hope that the level of scrapping seen in 2016 continues in to 2017 in order to bring supply and demand more in to balance in the coming years.”