Sea-Intelligence has analysed shipping liners’ vessel developments on Africa-bound services, highlighting the continent’s growing importance as a key maritime hub.
This past week, MSC booked the deployment of 23,000+ TEU vessels on its Asia-WAF ‘Africa Express’ service.
Currently, the largest vessel on the service is of 16,600 TEU, with the average vessel size on the service of 14,465 TEU.
These new phase-ins would raise the service’s nominal capacity by 50 per cent, representing a large increase.
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The first of these deployments, MSC Diletta, was removed from Asia-NEUR’s ‘Lion’ service and replaced by a smaller 15,500 TEU vessel.
Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, said: “This is a remarkable development given that the reverse tendency has been observed in recent years, with smaller vessels on Asia-NEUR being replaced by larger vessels.”
Since June 2022, the average vessel size for deep-sea services to West Africa has increased by 50 per cent.
Shipping lines have been deploying larger vessels to the region, with the largest existing vessel (before MSC’s latest deployments) being over 16,000 TEU.
Since January 2024, 26 vessels of 15,000 TEU or more have been deployed on trades connecting to West Africa.
Additionally, these vessels were deployed across four services, three of which are these MSC standalone services. Furthermore, these vessels were deployed across four services, three of which are the MSC independent services.
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Murphy added: “This shows that MSC is strengthening their West Africa network and anticipating an even stronger growth opportunity in the region.”
Africa’s population reached 1.5 billion in 2024 and is anticipated to increase to 2.5 billion by 2050. This would bring Africa’s proportion of the world population to 28 per cent. Currently, West Africa accounts for 30 per cent of the 1.5 billion population.
Furthermore, during the previous 18 months, 56 per cent of West African ports have experienced increased connectivity.
Even in economic terms, year-on-year (YoY) growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (the only African aggregate for which the IMF releases growth numbers) is outpacing both the global and advanced economies.
Last month, a new report highlighted key actions to curb GHG emissions from domestic shipping in Africa and the Caribbean.
