Overcapacity next year? The container shipping market is set to see a wave of new vessel deliveries.

The Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO)’s latest September “Container Shipping Market Overview and Outlook” report indicates that, with a large number of newbuildings scheduled for delivery, fleet capacity growth is expected to significantly outpace demand growth by 2027, potentially leading to oversupply in the container shipping market.

Niels Rasmussen, BIMCO’s Chief Shipping Analyst, stated: “In 2026, shipping disruptions and robust growth in head-haul trade will continue to support the container shipping market; however, the accelerated expansion of fleet capacity could begin to weaken the supply-demand balance by 2027.”

At present, the global container fleet has surpassed 34 million TEU, with a cumulative increase of approximately 10 million TEU over the past five and a half years.

BIMCO forecasts that global fleet capacity will grow by 4.6% in 2026 and by a further 9% in 2027. Meanwhile, the current global container ship orderbook exceeds 14 million TEU, roughly equivalent to about 42% of the existing fleet, while vessel scrapping volumes are expected to remain low.

This means that, over the next two years, a substantial number of new vessels will continue to be delivered, further intensifying the pressure on the container shipping market from rising capacity.

However, market demand in 2026 is still expected to grow at a robust pace, partially offsetting the addition of new capacity. Data show that, in the first seven months of 2026, global container throughput increased by 5.1% year on year. Notably, volume growth in regions outside the Persian Gulf offset declines on routes serving South and West Asia, while exports from East Asia and Southeast Asia accounted for more than half of the year-to-date increase in global container volumes.

From the perspective of cargo‑volume composition, since the beginning of this year, freight volumes on mainline and regional routes have increased by 6.3%, while backhaul volumes have remained broadly flat. As a result, the growth rate of vessel demand has outpaced the overall growth in container throughput, further supporting the market’s ability to absorb additional capacity.

In addition, the Cape of Good Hope route has extended shipping distances on major global trade lanes, further straining vessel capacity; disruptions to shipping in the Persian Gulf have also left some vessels temporarily unable to deploy across broader markets.

Regarding market trends in 2027, BIMCO has outlined two scenarios based on the navigational conditions in the Strait of Hormuz. The first scenario assumes that the Strait will remain largely closed throughout 2027, while the second scenario assumes that shipping traffic returns to normal.

Under either scenario, BIMCO projects that the effective fleet capacity will grow by approximately 5%–6% by 2027, while demand growth will lag significantly behind capacity expansion. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, container shipping demand is expected to increase by only 0.5%–2.5% in 2027; should the strait resume normal traffic, demand growth is projected at 2.5%–4.5%.

BIMCO believes that the divergence in demand growth between the two scenarios primarily reflects the broader economic implications of potential disruptions to shipping in the Gulf region. Should the Strait of Hormuz remain closed to normal traffic, persistent oil supply constraints and elevated oil prices could weigh on global economic growth and further dampen container‑shipping demand.

Rasmussen stated: “Unless navigation in the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal, ongoing oil supply constraints and higher oil prices could dampen global economic growth and the expansion of container shipping demand in 2027.”

Even if the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal shipping operations, the container shipping market still faces another key variable—the Suez Canal.

Recently, several major container shipping lines have begun gradually resuming routes that transit the Suez Canal. Among them, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have re‑routed more of their Gemini Alliance services to pass through the canal, while COSCO Shipping Lines has also resumed Suez Canal transits for some of its largest container vessels, including the 24,188 TEU ultra‑large container ship OOCL Portugal, which recently transited the canal.

As more shipping routes return to normal schedules, the same fleet of vessels can handle a greater volume of cargo within the same time frame, effectively unlocking additional container‑ship capacity.

BIMCO estimates that if the Suez Canal route gradually returns to normal by 2027, the growth rate of shipping demand will decline by approximately 5 percentage points compared with current forecasts. Once the affected routes are fully restored, overall shipping demand could be reduced by about 10% relative to the scenario in which vessels continue to detour around the Cape of Good Hope.

BIMCO believes that the container shipping market is currently facing a unique situation: on the one hand, global container ship order backlogs are at historically high levels, with a large number of new vessels scheduled for delivery over the next two years; on the other hand, factors that have helped absorb excess capacity in recent years—such as Cape‑size detours and regional shipping disruptions—are likely to ease gradually going forward.

Rasmussen concluded: “Although the supply-demand balance improved in 2026, we expect the market to weaken in 2027 as supply growth accelerates, particularly after the Suez Canal route returns to normal, which could further reduce vessel demand.”