With traffic growth slackening, liner operators and tramp vessel owners are taking ships out of use in order to cut costs. By the end of December, 165 cellular container ships totalling 430,000teu were reported to be lying idle in ports and in the roads, according to container shipping analyst AXS-Alphaliner. These represented 3.5% of the existing cellular slot capacity - about the same proportion as during the previous container market downturn in early 2002. Of these, 105 were believed to be charter vessels without hire contracts in which case shipowners and investors are picking up the financial losses, while the rest should be either operator-owned or on charter, straining the balance sheets of carriers.
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