Container lines

Maersk reported a record Q3 result as shippers locked into long-term contracts continued to drive profitability for the carrier despite sharply declining volumes.

MSC has taken issue with the way the carbon intensity of ships will be calculated under a new IMO rule, which it says does not reflect container shipping’s operational realities.

Finding an alternative fuel whose production can be scaled up to meet the enormous demands of a wide range of industries makes it a daunting challenge, say industry experts.

The latest new ship contracts come despite concerns that falling cargo volumes and new vessel deliveries will create a yawning gap between ship supply and demand starting next year.

Carriers in the eastbound trans-Pacific continue to improve their on-time vessel arrivals at US ports as softer import volumes contributed to reductions in vessel backlogs and marine terminal congestion.

Container analysts and carriers differ widely on how much impact two new IMO rules will have in softening a wave of tonnage hitting the water in two years, writes JOC Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.

The surcharge revisions come as average contract prices out of Indian trades have already declined to the mid-2021 trendline and could drop further to near pre-pandemic levels.

US ports saw a jump in shipments from Bangladesh this year through August, mostly from apparel and clothing accessories, as importers support a “China-plus-one” sourcing strategy.

The rate declines seen in major ocean trades this year have begun to seep into intra-Asia markets, with regional carriers now reporting lower revenues and volumes.

Rates on ocean trades from India continue to slide, although the country’s shipping lobby thinks prices will eventually settle at a midpoint between pre-pandemic levels and the record highs of earlier this year.

Buyers of ocean capacity have long used freight rate indexes to gauge the direction of the market, but disruption and sky-high costs during the COVID-19 pandemic have elevated their prominence, often leading to difficult discussions with their executive leadership.

A widely held view by carrier executives that the IMO’s environmental regulations will absorb a large amount of surplus vessel capacity has been countered by shipping analyst Drewry.

Maersk and Wan Hai are throttling back their capacity into the US West Coast amid a severe drop in container freight rates that could lead to even more vessel cuts as the fourth quarter progresses.

CMA CGM is adding a new South America-US Gulf service that aims to restore some of the capacity lost on that trade lane due to cutbacks over the past year.

With MSC poised to further increase the size of its fleet, it could back out of the 2M Alliance to create its own standalone service network, leaving Maersk to search for new vessel-sharing partners, writes JOC analyst Lars Jensen.

Market conditions may be normalizing for carriers as rates and demand drop closer to 2019 levels, but shippers in Europe continue to battle disruption in their import cargo flows.

Although trans-Pacific carriers are now rushing to blank sailings, the capacity overhang in the trade lane is so great that industry analysts say excess space will continue to plague the trade lane.

The effects of an earlier-than-normal peak season and canceled retail orders have begun to show in US import data, with volumes from Asia in September falling to their lowest level of the year.

As carriers get even more aggressive in pulling trans-Pacific capacity, they are setting up the market for a spot rate rebound at the first sign of a pick-up in volumes.

Highlighting the buoyant market conditions for the first nine months of 2022, Cosco Shipping said export freight rates on the main trade routes “were maintained at a high level.”

CMA CGM will reconfigure its current services connecting the US Gulf with Brazil in November and commence a new string between the US East Coast and West Coast of South America in December.

US retailers are forecasting declining imports through the end of the year even though holiday merchandise sales are expected to be strong.

Rates and volume on the major trade lanes out of Asia fell during the third quarter, but not enough to slow OOCL’s revenue growth.

More than 5 million TEU of ordered container shipping capacity will be delivered over the next two years, outstripping demand as the global economic outlook darkens.

Maersk has pledged to replace older tonnage only with green fuel–compliant ships, and with the latest order for six vessels the carrier has more than 300,000 TEU of dual-fuel capacity on its orderbook.

While rivals make huge investments in end-to-end logistics, Hapag-Lloyd’s strategy is to retain a core focus on container transport and the expansion of its global terminal footprint.

Major carriers and smaller liners are consolidating and halting trans-Pacific services amid a sharp drop in spot freight rates that hasn’t been cured by blank sailings.

Spot rates in the eastbound trans-Pacific are dropping so quickly — and by such large amounts — that industry analysts warn carriers could soon be carrying containers at a loss.

A trio of technology providers want to give shippers the ability to tie sensor-based container data to in-transit cargo insurance decisions.

Growth forecasts for Indian exports have been challenged by the dual headwinds of adverse geopolitical factors and rising inflationary pressures plaguing larger economies.

A consortium of liner carriers and terminals aiming to speed the sharing of shipment data with banks believes it can overcome a chronic consent hurdle in the process.

Spot rates on the Asia–North Europe trade lane have now fallen 50 percent since January as softening demand and worsening economic indicators lead to a steady slowdown of the container shipping market.

Vessel on-time performance to US ports improved in August, but was still noticeably below global reliability as supply chain bottlenecks on some of the major east-west trade lanes began to ease.

Foreign transshipment demand for Indian containerized exports and imports remains considerable despite recent heightened stakeholder efforts to tame the costly mode in the absence of insufficient origin-to-destination direct connections.

Trans-Pacific carriers in recent months slashed capacity to the West Coast as Asian imports and freight rates plummeted this summer, but the trade will likely continue to have excess capacity in the coming months unless they blank more capacity than is currently planned.

Executives at Wan Hai Lines and Mediterranean Shipping Co. foresee softer trans-Pacific container volumes for the last quarter of 2022 as consumers pull back on spending.

A vigorous blank sailings program on the Asia-North Europe trade lane has yet to stem the rapid decline in spot rates that have fallen more than 50 percent since Jan. 1.

CMA CGM will deploy six vessels with an average capacity of 2,000 TEU on its new Medgulf loop between the ports of Houston and Miami and the Mediterranean.

With prices on east–west routes out of Asia in freefall, high rate levels on the trans-Atlantic is encouraging carriers to shift capacity into the westbound trade, putting those rates under pressure.

In the third detention and demurrage complaint against Hapag-Lloyd in the past year, Orange Avenue Express alleged the ocean carrier charged $258,000 in detention for containers that could not be returned due to port congestion.