Two Chinese shipbuilders announced that they signed letters-of-intent with CMA CGM for 9 vessels with 22,000 TEU capacity each, surpassing the current capacity record of 21,413 TEU held by OOCL’s latest mega-ships put into rotation.

It is not sure yet why the carrier thinks additional capacity is needed, especially in the Asia-Europe trade lanes where these super-sized vessels can be deployed. Over the next two years this trade lane is set to receive almost 80 vessels with 1.4 million TEU capacity.

One argument could be that CMA CGM wants to take advantage to buy these vessels at rather low price levels to fill a void in its fleet as it is the only carrier in its alliance that currently does not operate ultra-large vessels.