FIVE large redundant container ships are set to be moored in a sea loch off the west coast of Scotland for the first time since the 1970s, in a sign of the severe effect on freight from the global recession.
Three Maersk Line ships, which can carry 13,000 tonnes between them, are currently stationed in the Firth of Clyde near Largs awaiting a final decision from Maersk bosses in Copenhagen as to whether to sail up to Loch Striven, north of Bute, to moor for at least six months.
Two further ships owned by an unnamed company have also notified the Clydeport harbourmaster at Greenock, who oversees moorings in the area, of an intention to use the loch, and there are rumours that other ships could be lining up to use the facility. It is not known how much it will cost the freight companies to use the loch, but it is likely to run to millions of pounds.
A spokesman for the harbourmaster at Clydeport said that the three Maersk ships in the Firth of Clyde, which are named Bentonville, Beaumont and Performance, are currently in a state of "hot lay-up", which means that they have been reduced to a skeleton crew while they await instructions. Assuming they go into "cold lay-up", they will still require a residual crew of about 10 sailors to maintain the three of them.
Loch Striven is sometimes used by naval ships and submarines, and attracts commercial ships to use its refuelling point. But it is the first time since the oil crisis of 1973 that shipping companies have been planning to put their freighters into storage in Scotland, and reflects a trend around the world.
Clive Marchant, a senior teaching fellow in logistics at Heriot Watt University, said the development reflects the fact that trade volumes have tumbled and shipping companies over-expanded their fleets during the economic boom.
He said: "The problem is the lead-time to build a container ship, which is one to two years. The freighters all just got caught out.
"There is also the fact that we have gone into a new generation of ships known as post-Panamax, which are 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes, and get their name from the fact that they are too big for the Panama canal.
"Feeder ships like the ones in the Firth of Clyde handle deliveries outside the major ports, but the freight companies don't need so many of them at the moment."
In a telling sign of the current situation, ship freight trading volumes between Asia and Europe are down by 20% in recent months, having enjoyed uninterrupted growth since the 1960s, latterly including 20% year-on-year for until 2007.
A spokeswoman for Maersk, which operates the biggest fleet of container ships in the world, told the Sunday Herald that it might have as many as 25 freighters preparing for or entering "cold lay-up" worldwide by the end of the year, most of them in the Far East.
The company recently announced that it had lost $555 million (£348m) in the first quarter of this year alone, although some of this was down to the Maersk Oil and Gas division. Other major shipping freight companies such as Germany's Hapag-Lloyd and China's Cosco and China Shipping have all announced big drops in first-quarter revenues as well.
A spokeswoman for the Chamber of Shipping, which represents UK shipping companies, said: "The financial turbulence has affected consumer spending, and lower consumer spending obviously has a significant impact on the need for sea transport. Ship-owners globally are all feeling the pinch and ships of all types from container-ships to bulk carriers to offshore vessels are being temporarily laid-up in Panama, Singapore, all around the world."
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