Container Lines Face Intensifying Cost Squeeze If you want to make money in container shipping, better to lease out mega-ships to the liner companies than to be a liner company operating those vessels, paying the fuel bills and catering to cargo customers. Container-ship lessor Costamare (NYSE: CMRE ) is a case in point. On the quarterly analyst call, Gregory Zikos, Costamare's chief financial officer, reported that "larger vessels have enjoyed a rising charter market and today there's a limited supply. Charter rates for larger vessels have been rising faster than those of smaller vessels." Costamare cited data from Clarksons showing that one-year time-charter rates have reached $30,000 a day for container ships with capacity to carry 8,500 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU). Chart credit: Costamare According to Zikos, there is now more interest in three- to five-year charters beyond the standard one-year term. "The gap [in pricing] between a one-year and three- to five-year charter is not as wide as it has been in the past," he said, pointing out that "some years ago, there was no three- to five-year market for larger vessels at all, and now we are seeing these deals." When liner companies agree to multi-year charters at pricing that's at less of a discount to one-year rates than before, it implies that they're more concerned about future rate inflation and are more inclined to lock in capacity now to protect themselves.