Container lines

A sharp drop in idle container ship capacity during the first half of June is fueling hopes among container ship tramp owners that charter hire rates could pick up again.

The Ocean Three Alliance has taken the unprecedented step of withdrawing one of its Asia-Europe strings at the start of the peak season that will take 12,000 TEUs out of service, according to Alphaliner.

The general slowdown in China’s container exports was supported by the latest manufacturing data that shows weak factory activity being recorded in the mainland for the fourth consecutive month.

Rates on major east-west container routes are “in free fall” and likely to remain depressed by supply-demand imbalances for at least two more years, according to analysts at Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.

Hapag Lloyd is adding the port call of Ashdod, Israel, to its service connecting the country with Turkey and said it will begin calling on Iskenderun, Turkey in late July through an unspecified service.

The new head of MOL Line said its container line will cooperate more with its nine terminals in order to boost profitability after losses from its liner business deepened to 9.5 billion yen ($76.6 million) last fiscal year.

Shippers on the over supplied Asia-Europe trade appear to be honoring their service contracts with container lines even as the spot market tumbles to new lows every week.

The G6 Alliance is seeking to pick up additional cargo in a weak market by extending one of its Asia-Europe routes to include the Baltic Sea port of Gdansk, Poland, and has revised a separate loop to include a stop at Port Said, Egypt.

An Indian-flagged cargo vessel carrying containers sank in the early morning hours of Monday about 40 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast, according to Indian maritime agencies.

Most attacks on ships in Southeast Asian waters are armed robbery, not piracy, the Singapore Shipping Association says.

Japanese carrier NYK said it expects a weaker yen, low fuel costs and cost-cutting to provide it with higher container shipping profit despite low rates this year.

The recent plunge in spot rates for trans-Pacific container shipments doesn’t reflect what cargo interests will pay as a result of recently negotiated service contracts with carriers for the coming year.

China has fined 21 container carriers a total of RMB 4.25 million ($684,000) for providing customers in the China-Japan trade with rates below officially quoted levels.

When it comes to piracy, carriers must balance the speeds and routes their vessels take with crew safety and delivering maximum efficiency to clients.

Crowley Maritime will add a roundtrip monthly sailing between the Philadelphia area and San Juan, Puerto Rico, to meet demand in a tight southbound market.

Evergreen Line will order 20 new vessels, each with capacity for 3,000 20-foot-equivalent units, Vice Group Chairman Bronson Hsieh said at a shareholders’ meeting Wednesday.

Global economic uncertainty and a slowing China continues to hang over cargo markets, with air and ocean transportation providers struggling to match capacity to demand while having little visibility going into the second half of 2015.

Far from being out of sync with the global market, the mega-ships that are being deployed today are a natural evolution of the growth in global demand, according to an executive of one of the largest container ship chartering companies.

Asia-Europe freight rates are now 82 percent lower than at the same time last year, dropping by 15.6 percent this week to settle at the latest record low of $205 per 20-foot container, according to the latest reading of the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index.

U.S, European and Chinese maritime regulators on Thursday agreed to work together to keep a sharper eye on massive shipping alliances.

Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. will add a Panama Canal service in July from China and Korea to four U.S. South Atlantic ports to handle rising U.S import volume to the fastest-growing region.

Next year’s expansion of the Panama Canal could boost U.S. East Coast ports’ share of Asian containerized imports by as much as 10 percentage points, according to a new study that contrasts with more conservative forecasts.

Intra-regional feeder carrier Shreyas Shipping and Logistics is adding more vessels to its fleet, eyeing the prospect of accelerating its growth through coastal shipping operations in India.

The Asia-to-Australia trade became the latest to experience the distressing new trend of bunker surcharges overtaking the actual container freight rates on the spot market.

An index measuring spot rates to ship a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles this week fell to a more than four-year low, a plunge somewhat explained in part by seasonal decline in demand, but still an ominous sign to carriers seeking general rate increases over the coming months.

A new free-trade agreement between Australia and its largest trading partner, China, will likely further accelerate containerized trade between the duo after their volume rose 14.6 percent in the last three years.

A new weekly intra-Asia service will give Indonesian and Malaysian shippers better access to the transshipment hubs of Singapore and Port Klang, Malaysia starting later this month.

On-time performance for container ships in the three core east-west trade lanes improved in May for the fourth consecutive month, Drewry Supply Chain Advisors said in its monthly Carrier Performance Insight.

Mediterranean Shipping Company will add a direct call at Hazira, India, to its IPAK service in order to enhance direct connections between India, North Europe and the Mediterranean, effective in early July.

The freight rate collapse on the Asia-Europe trades has triggered a domino effect across carriers’ global networks with spot rates out of China to Australia and South America sinking to all time lows, according to Alphaliner.

CMA CGM has strengthened its services to Turkey by adding a call to the port of Iskenderun in order to serve rising demand for raw materials that are converted into industrial inputs and finished products.

New global requirements on the construction of large container vessels aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic structural failure will likely increase the price tag for carriers, reducing the economies of scale carrier operators gain via massive ships.

The second and third quarter of 2016 could provide a sweet spot with fewer vessel deliveries enabling container lines to improve load factors and profitability on the battered Asia-Europe trade.

Although the overall capacity of the container ship fleet is growing, the number of smaller capacity ships has declined, which could trigger newbuilding orders in the sector, a senior shipping analyst said.

Container lines in the G6 Alliance have revised two of their trans-Pacific routes by adding eastbound calls at Pusan, South Korea, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a move that could help them challenge CKYHE as the dominant alliance on the trade.

CMA CGM said it has successfully closed the issue of 725 million euros ($812 million) of its 7.75 percent senior unsecured bonds due 2021.

The top three ocean carriers — Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM — have boosted their share of global container capacity to 38 percent from 26 percent over the past decade and are continuing to pull ahead of their rivals, according to Drewry Maritime Research.

The worldwide rally in containership charter rates may have lost most of its steam, but not for those with the right ships in the right regions, which right now would be the Atlantic.

Shippers have plenty to worry about — including volatile pricing and cargo delays — but piracy should be less of a concern, as the number of incidents has been falling since 2010.

Mitsubishi Corp. has launched a $300 million fund to acquire, manage and lease container vessels to major shipping firms, but the fund’s size apparently fell well short of the Japanese giant’s expectations.