TEHRAN – Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) is ranked 14th in Alphaliner’s latest list of the world’s top 100 shipping lines published on January 7.

Based on the provided data, IRISL has climbed one place from 15th in the entity’s list for the previous year. The IRISL’s capacity now takes up 0.6 percent of the world’s total shipping capacity.

The Alphaliner Top 100 is the ranking of the largest container or liner operators in terms of global capacity, taking into account the fleets of virtually all of the container operators worldwide.

In 2018, IRISL stood at the 19th place in Alphaliner’s Top 100 ranking, while the company held 22nd place in its preceding year.

According to IRISL Head Mohammadreza Modares Khiabani, IRISL currently has 150 active vessels, of which 32 are bulk carriers, 30 are container vessels, 22 are cargo carriers of general goods, 18 are service and passenger vessels, two are roll-on/roll-off, and three barges.

This year, the world's largest container shipping company, the Danish Maersk has slid to the second place in the list of the world’s top 100 container/liner operators giving the first place to Swiss-Italian Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

Geneva-based MSC held second place in the previous year’s ranking.  Based on Alphaliner’s latest data, the company now owns 645 ships with a total container capacity of 4,284,728 TEU.

French container transportation and shipping company CMA CGM S.A. is ranked third with a total capacity of 3,182,157 TEU.

With 479 vessels and a total capacity of 2,932,779 TEU, the Chinese state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company, known as COSCO or COSCO Group is ranked as the world’s fourth-biggest shipping company.

Back in October 2021, Modares Khiabani had said that maritime transportation conducted by the IRISL fleet in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-August 22, 2021) increased by 43 percent compared to the previous year’s same period.

“During the first five months of the current year, the revenue from foreign maritime transportation reached about $431 million to register a 100-percent growth compared to the same period of the previous year,” he said at the IRISL’s annual general assembly on October 10, 2021.

The official stated that sanctions restrictions along with the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic had a negative impact on the country’s shipping performance during the previous Iranian calendar year.

He described the sanctions as a debilitating factor in the way of IRISL activities, saying that "sanctions have made it difficult for us to supply parts for the vessels and also have significantly increased insurance costs."

“IRISL has conducted 21 percent of the country's total maritime transport this year, and fortunately, during these five months, not only the shipping performance of the IRISL has improved compared to the previous year, but also the situation of the group (IRISL) has improved much compared to [the Iranian calendar year] 1398 (ended in March 2020),” he said.

According to the official, the share of IRISL in the country’s total maritime transportation was 18 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year.

EF/MA