Containership owners have seen billions of dollars wiped off the value of their fleets over the past year.

Massive overcapacity has squeezed not only freight rates, but also the value of steel floating on water, the latest service from VesselsValue.com shows.

The world’s largest container ship owner, AP Møller-Maersk, has seen the value of its containership fleet fall 24% in the past 12 months. Its 222 vessels currently in service are now worth $9.1 billion, compared with $12 billion at the start of November last year, according to VesselsValue.com.

Similarly, major owner and operator MSC’s fleet of 202 containerships in service at present are worth $6.9 billion, compared with $8.4 billion 12 months ago.

A report reveals that the Vessels Value data shows that today’s fleet values are closing in on what these ships would have been worth in November 2009 – continued declines in freight and charter rates this year have pushed asset values back to the lows of two years ago, when the containership market was suffering the worst downturn in its history.

Online ship valuation service VesselsValue.com was launched this year by London-based sale and purchase broker Seasure Shipping and this week expanded its coverage to the containership sector, including vessels ranging from feedermax capacity of 500teu all the way up to the ultra-large container vessels of 18,000teu.

In the past broking houses have been unable to publish price estimates for larger containerships as a lack of sales liquidity in the secondhand market meant there was little price guidance from deals, with only private valuations on offer. For instance, London-headquartered broker Clarkson’s’ research arm only publishes prices up to 3,600 teu.

Therefore, the advantage of Vessels Value’s data-driven, algorithm-derived figures is that it allows insight into the worth of some of the biggest ships in service.

The 2006-built Emma Maersk, (pictured) the first of the line’s series of 15,500teu vessels, is worth $121.4 million at present, according to Vessels Value.

Media reports at the time of delivery estimated the new building contract price of the ship at $145 million, meaning the latest valuation represents a depreciation of around 17%.