International container delivery’s common emissions depth rose 1.5% yr over yr within the second quarter of 2026, however that masked widespread effectivity positive factors throughout most vessel segments and stark operational variations between carriers operating comparable companies.
Athens-based VesselBot analyzed 86,389 voyages accomplished by 6,523 container vessels, discovering that fleet-wide and trade-lane averages generally utilized by shippers and regulators can obscure important variations in particular person voyage efficiency.
Fleet-wide common worsens regardless of segment-level positive factors
General Nicely-to-Wake emissions depth climbed to 231.7 grams of CO2 equal per TEU-kilometer in Q2 2026, up 1.5% from the prior-year quarter. Nonetheless, 5 of the six vessel-size classes tracked within the report posted effectivity enhancements over the identical interval, starting from a 0.9% achieve for Panamax vessels to a ten.6% achieve for Very Giant Container Ships (VLCS).
Solely feeder vessels, which accounted for 63.9% of all Q2 voyages, turned much less environment friendly, and that single phase’s decline was enough to tug the fleet-wide common within the mistaken course.
“That’s the danger of managing to a mean: It will probably level you in the wrong way of what’s truly taking place,” mentioned Constantine Komodromos, chief government and founding father of VesselBot, in a launch.
Giant ships do disproportionate work with fewer emissions
The report highlighted the outsized function of mega-ships in world container commerce. Neo-Panamax and VLCS vessels ran simply 7.4% of all voyages in Q2 however generated 43.5% of whole transport work whereas accounting for less than 27.4% of emissions.
Feeder and Panamax vessels confirmed the inverse sample, working 80% of voyages, producing simply 26% of transport work, and producing 45.6% of whole emissions.
The report relies on AIS-tracked voyage information and VesselBot’s vessel-specific digital twin fashions, measuring Nicely-to-Wake emissions depth on the particular person voyage stage moderately than counting on carrier-reported averages or trade benchmarks.
The 4 main fronthaul trades — China/East Asia to Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the North America West Coast, plus Northern Europe to the North America East Coast — accounted for only one.2% of all Q2 voyages however generated 21.7% of whole quarterly transport work whereas producing simply 12.3% of emissions.
On the Northern Europe-North America East Coast commerce, the place the quarterly common Nicely-to-Wake emissions depth reached 138 grams CO2e per TEU-km, Hapag-Lloyd and Mediterranean Transport Co. outperformed the route common however with markedly totally different outcomes.
Hapag-Lloyd recorded a mean emissions depth of 80.7 grams CO2e per TEU-km, 59% beneath the commerce common, whereas MSC posted 117.5 grams, 15% beneath. The comparability revealed a 31.3% effectivity hole between the 2 carriers regardless of related voyage distances and port pairs, highlighting how vessel deployment, utilization, and voyage execution drive emissions outcomes.
“A commerce lane common tells a shipper what a route appears like on paper. It doesn’t inform them what occurred on their cargo,” Komodromos mentioned. “Distance alone can’t clarify that unfold. The distinction is in how these voyages had been executed.”
Utilization emerges as key effectivity driver
Vessel utilization emerged as one of many strongest predictors of voyage-level emissions depth, the report discovered. Voyages in essentially the most environment friendly emissions-intensity class averaged 80% utilization, in comparison with 31% for the least environment friendly. Probably the most environment friendly voyages additionally carried near 9,000 TEUs on common.
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