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sail with a lower utilization of, say, 70 percent at those rates than to sail 100 per- cent full at the old rates.?The calculation has to be made by in-dividual lines, but it could be a potential alternative to lay-ups,? Skov said. But with the drive to regain profitabil- ity, the thought of accepting lower cargo loading could be asking too much, andthe pressure to deploy vessels of over 10,000 TEUs will grow with the delivery of each ship. Between now and 2014, 80 percent of all the ships that will be delivered will be VLCCs or ULCCs (ultra large container ships), according to Aplhaliner. The mar- ket intelligence provider said 26 ships of that size were delivered in the first four months of the year and another 29 willbe delivered before the New Year cele- brations.As operating expenses rise, lines are vigorously seeking greater economies ofscale to bring down unit costs. Leading this drive is Maersk Line. Next year the first of its 20 EEE series 18,000 TEU ships will float into service.Ships of this size are limited to operat- ing on the Asia-Europe trade, and as they come online shipping companies have to cascade capacity down to the other trades, keeping rates under pressure. This profit-sapping surfeit of capacity is giving liner executives grey hairs. ?The boiling overcapacity concern is indeed frustrating the industry, as the global tonnage supply has not been re-sponsibly managed by some shippinglines over the past few years,? said an Evergreen Marine spokesman. The top Taiwan carrier was one of the few companies to maintain a conserva- tive approach to newbuildings, keeping its orderbook closed for years as com-petitors pushed theirs out.However, it now has 35 vessels of 8,800 TEUs on order that will basically see one ship delivered a month for the next three years starting from July this year. ?The ship orders were planned andcontracted with proper timing aheadbased on Evergreen?s own development scheme, rather than inflaming the ratewar when the market was very fragile during the past few years.? Another line that has chosen to aban-don its long-maintained conservative ap- proach to ship orders is Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL). The Hong Kong-based carrier last year placed or- ders for ten 13,000 TEU ships at a cost of more than $1.3 billion. They will be the biggest ships in the fleet when deliv- ered in 2013 and 2014.Stephen Ng, OOCL director of corpo- rate planning, said the decision to invest in larger vessels was part of the line?s June 2012www.marinelink.com 59SeaIntel?s Lars Jensen said: ?There is nothing wrong with getting the big ships, but they are coming online faster than the market can absorb them.?MR June12 # 8 (57-64):MR Template 6/12/2012 9:08 AM Page 59