11/1/2022 0 Comments Feeder vessel meaning![]() Unifeeder is owned by DP World, one of the biggest global container terminal operators. They operate 36 vessels and bought the feedertech group recently. Unifeeder is the European market leader with 2.1 Mio TEU per year, up to 8000 port calls and 400 employees. With a volume of 5.6 million TEU in 2018, they’re the 14th biggest container operator according to Alphaliner. They do not own, lease or operate containers but operate more than 110 vessels (of which 40 are owned) up to the new Panamax size. They operate throughout Asia, the Middle East, Caribbean, Central America and Europe with a staff of 300. X-Press feeders started their operations in 1972 and is now the world’s largest pure feeder operator. Most of the biggest feeder operators are mainline carriers who operate their fleet of smaller vessels for transshipment or feedering. X-Press Feeders and Unifeeder are the two biggest pure feeder operators. By far the highest transshipment volume has Singapore with 28.5 million TEU in 2017. Only 25 ports worldwide could be considered dominant transshipment ports, for example, Bremerhaven (57% transshipment share) and Wilhelmshaven (70%) in Northern Europe, nine ports in the Mediterranean followed by five transshipment hubs in the Far East. Let me give you an example: The average number of North European mainline port calls is four any cargo on board for other ports will have to be a feeder. Most of the time feedering is closely connected to transshipment hubs. Globally, 124 carriers act as feeder operators with an annual trade capacity of 43 million TEU split into dedicated operators (mainline shipping companies handling the feedering of their own containers) and common carriers (smaller shipping lines moving another carrier’s boxes). When shipping lines book a slot, their containers usually travel on a service bill of lading issued by the feeder operator to the mainline carrier. The booking process is simple: carriers bring their containers and book them as SOCs with the feeder operator, most of the time even for empty container repositioning. Because they sometimes serve terminals that are too small to have their lifting equipment, some feeder vessels are geared with cranes on board. ![]() Feeder operators have established predefined routes over the years and most of them are operated by a local business at low volumes. The demand for this so-called “hub and spoke model” in container logistics was growing during the last few years with the rise of mega-ships. The small feeders carry up to 1000 TEU, feeders between 10 and feedermax until up to 3000 TEU. In general, container ships are classified into seven major size categories: small feeder, feeder, feedermax, Panamax, Post-Panamax, New Panamax and ultra-large. Feeder vessels mainly collect shipping containers from different ports and transport them to central container terminals or transshipment hubs where they are loaded to bigger vessels for further transport. Feeder vessels are medium-sized ships (up to 3000 TEU) which carry between 3 containers on average. ![]()
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