Towards the ultra-large container ship

Container ships are increasing in size all the time, with the 10,000 teu barrier finally having been broken. The majority of these ships are being built in Korean yards, and Lloyd’s Register Asia has been closely involved.

Since the first order for a post-panamax container ship of 8,500 teu was placed in 2002 by Seaspan Shipmanagement of Vancouver, on behalf of a consortium of Chinese and Greek owners, shipowners have continued to order larger and larger ships. Until recently, the 10,000 teu mark was considered a psychological milestone, and one which no shipping company had openly passed. That changed when China Ocean Shipping Corporation (COSCO) placed an order at Hyundai Heavy Industries to Lloyd’s Register class in January 2005 for four 10,000 teu container ships, to be delivered in 2007 and 2008. Each of these ships will have a length overall of 349 metres, a breadth of 45.6 metres and a depth of 27.2 metres. Each will be fitted with a 12-cylinder 94,000 horsepower engine to enable a service speed of 25.8 knots.

Is there a limit to the growth this sector can sustain? Amid worries of potential oversupply, market analysts remain optimistic about the demand for containerised trade. “Nearly half of the container ship orderbook is comprised of ships with a capacity of greater than 6,000 teu,” says David Tozer, Lloyd’s Register’s Business Manager – Container Ships. “This will lead to a surge in the size of the post-panamax fleet which some believe will cause oversupply and hence a dramatic drop in rates.

“However, concerns about reduced outsourcing to China can be countered by the huge growth potential in other emerging countries. As a result, most analysts are positive about the future demand for containerisation, and the future demand growth for large container ships of 10,000 teu capacity or more seems secure.”

Bigger, faster, better

The large container ships being ordered today are not only surpassing all past tonnage in terms of sheer size, but also in terms of technical sophistication, design and speed. For instance, during its sea trials, the 8,500 teu CSCL Oceania managed to attain a speed of 32.2 knots at ballast draught.

“We believe that this could be the highest trial speed attained by a large container ship to date,” says Graham Porter, Vice-President of Seaspan Shipmanagement. “The series of 8,500 teu ships are forward-thinking in both technical terms and with regard to the environment. Samsung Heavy Industries and Lloyd’s Register Asia greatly contributed to the high quality of these ships.”

The series of 8,500 teu vessels were among the first container ships to adopt Lloyd’s Register’s Environmental Protection notation, a means of demonstrating to interested parties that a ship has been designed to the highest environmental standards, often exceeding the requirements of existing environmental legislation.

Seaspan also opted for the Crew Accommodation Comfort notation, which represents a verification of the noise and vibration characteristics of a vessel against the latest and most stringent standards for shipboard crew accommodation.

Seaspan’s series of 9,600 teu vessels is about to begin construction at Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), having just undergone structural assessment in Lloyd’s Register Asia’s Busan Plan Approval Office.

“With container ships of this size, the owner and the builder will be particularly focused on the reliability and performance of the hull structure over the course of the vessel’s transpacific trading life,” says Hee Duck Chung, Head of Plan Approval Services in Lloyd’s Register Asia’s Busan Office.

Lloyd’s Register’s ShipRight Structural Design Assessment [SDA] procedure for large container ships, a robust and proven structural analysis methodology, was applied to the 9,600 teu design to help ensure that the risks of structural damage, buckling and fatigue failure were minimised. In the process, special attention was paid to critical design details. In the context of large container ship design, these include hatch corners at the mid-hold athwartship support, in the transverse bulkhead and in front of the engine room.

The next step up

“The 9.600 teu series is significant for a number of reasons,” says Chung. “These ships represent a first step up in beam size, bringing the industry another step closer to the ultra-large container ship. Previously, the largest beam had been 42 metres, but the 9.600 teu series has brought that up to 45.6 metres.”

These ships will also be the first to be built in Korea to have 10 tiers of containers in the cargo hold. This is the practical upper limit; beyond this, container weight must be curtailed or there is a risk of the lowest containers being crushed. “It is longer variants of this design which will become the basis for the ships of the future that break the 10,000 teu barrier,” says Chung.

Tozer firmly believes that the industry will see the first order for a 12,500 teu vessel before the end of the decade. “It is only a matter of time before we see the first 12,500 teu vessel,” he says. “It is after this limit that port restrictions and the need to install a second screw to maintain normal trading speeds become issues for large container ship design, but right now, we are within realistic reach of the first 12,500 teu vessel.”

Building in Korea

The Korean yards have so far gained the majority of orders for post-panamax container ships and have established a foothold in this segment of the newbuild market.

“The Korean yards are targeting large container ships because they have the mass production capability and the capacity to build ships of this size in an economical manner,” says Rob Tustin, Technical Manager for New Construction, Lloyd’s Register Asia. “They have facilities for building ships of up to VLCC and, in some cases, ULCC size, and they want to maximise the utilisation of their building docks.”

Lloyd’s Register is currently one of the leading societies for container ships in Korea on a teu basis, with 173,950 teu ordered to Lloyd’s Register class in Korean yards in 2004.

“We have large container ship projects of more than 8,000 teu ongoing in all three of the major yards in Korea – Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries,” says Tustin. “We have a broad portfolio of large container ship designs, with the Seaspan 8,500 and 9,600 teu projects at Samsung, a 9,000 teu project also at Samsung, an 8,400 teu project in Daewoo and the 10,000 teu COSCO ships at Hyundai. We are well established as a preferred classification society for container ships in Korea.”

“The combination of our technical expertise in our three Asia plan approval centres coupled with our practical and experienced surveyors in the shipyards make our Asian capability unrivalled in the classification of large container ships” says John Stansfeld, Director of Lloyd’s Register Asia. “We are delighted to be working with COSCO, Seaspan, CSCL and others on these leading projects.”

For further information, contact:

Rob Tustin, Technical Manager New Construction, Lloyd’s Register Asia
Email: robert.tustin@lr.org
Tel: +82 (0)51 640 5010
Fax: +82 (0)51 637 0035

David Tozer, Business Manager – Container Ships
Email: david.tozer@lr.org
Tel: +44 (0)20 7423 1562
Fax: +44 (0)20 7423 2213