NYK to stay asset-light, slow steam bulkers like boxships to cut capacity

JAPAN's No 2 container shipping line, NYK, sees a difficult year ahead for the marine transportation sector with supply and demand gap still impacting the containership business.

NYK president Yasumi Kudo, in his annual New Year's address, said he aims to develop slow steaming bulkers as it has done in its containership fleet to offset surplus capacity.

The company also said it wants to create long-term contracts by leveraging its fleet size which stands at an operational fleet of capesize bulkers on long-term contracts.

It aims to fully leverage low charter rates of vessels with its strong contract logistics capabilities in its logistics division, while expanding customers and trading volumes in the containership division and Yusen Logistics Co Ltd.

"Our competitiveness more than anything else is our cost base. What affects our cost levels more than anything else is the reduction of the 3 Ms: Muda, Mura, and Muri (Muda: non-value adding activities, [such as excess containerships] and Mura: unevenness in production or work activities, Muri: excessive burdens).

Globally, 2013 will be a year with all-time highest number of new containership deliveries, with 280-plus vessels, representing 1.80 million TEU. Of this, 100 large-scale vessels over 8,000 TEU capacity will account for 1.10 million TEU.

If such vessel numbers were to be introduced on Asia-Europe routes only, it would result in an annual increase in space of 5.5 million TEU to a current 14 million TEU annual cargo movement, said Mr Kudo.