A growing field of analysts and industry insiders is warning that new capacity shortages are looming beyond 2011, although supply and demand in the container shipping industry appears in balance for next year.

Ongoing tightness in the availability of bank financing and a relatively lean pipeline for production of new equipment are pushing this toward certainty, according to this week's edition of The Journal of Commerce.

Analysts say the limited access to new capital for new vessels, along with the slow resumption in the construction of new ocean shipping containers, could lead to tight capacity in 2012 for retailers and manufacturers that faced a volatile market for supply and demand earlier this year.

"You are not going to see a lot of orders over the next two or three years, not because carriers are more disciplined, but because there is no money," said Tom Kim, Goldman Sach's Hong Kong-based shipping analyst.

"We do think that the lack of ship finance is going to constrain carriers from ordering new vessels. ... Those that have strong balance sheets ... will have access to capital, but the vast majority of the industry will not."