Container fleet: owned, chartered, newbuilds and scrapping
Capacity in TEU, yard instalments, charters returned.
By Surojit Chakraverti, founder of L3VLUP and an investor running a long-short healthcare and technology equities strategy.
On this subject: container fleet: owned, chartered, newbuilds and scrapping.Updated 5 November 2026
Part of project finance and infrastructure models, with the models, labs and guides around it.
What it does
The base of a liner forecast. Owned capacity in TEU rolls forward with the newbuilds the yard delivers and the oldest vessels sold for scrap; chartered-in capacity is added or returned to its owners as the market and the newbuilds allow. Capacity on average through the year, over the average vessel size, gives the vessels whose days drive fuel, port and running costs. A newbuild is paid for in instalments, typically a fifth two years before delivery, a fifth a year before and the rest on delivery, so the cash leaves well before the capacity arrives; instalments paid on vessels not yet delivered sit as progress payments.
Where it lives
The same schedule in each model that carries it, with the rows to open. Open a model in the browser, go to the sheet, and click the lines.
- Assumptions, rows 11–16: Owned capacity, FY0, Chartered-in capacity, FY0, Newbuild deliveries, Owned capacity scrapped…
- Assumptions, rows 19–22: Newbuild price, Yard instalment two years before delivery, Yard instalment one year before delivery, Yard instalment on delivery
- Fleet, rows 6–11: Opening owned capacity, Newbuild deliveries, Scrapped, Closing owned capacity…
- Fleet, rows 14–16: Opening chartered-in capacity, Added or redelivered, Closing chartered-in capacity
- Fleet, rows 19–25: Closing capacity operated, Average owned capacity, Average chartered-in capacity, Average capacity operated…
- Fleet, rows 28–32: Yard instalments paid, Cost of vessels delivered, Progress payments, opening, Progress payments, closing…
What a reviewer looks for
- Newbuild cost booked only on delivery, so the yard instalments disappear from the cash flow.
- Costs from closing rather than average capacity in a year the fleet changes.
- Chartered-in ships left out of the fleet that burns fuel and pays port charges.
Learn it, then build it
Vocabulary: TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit).