Container spot indices are showing a sea of red ink this week, with short-term freight rates down on all the major tradelanes.
Ocean carriers are being forced to cancel sailings with little or no notice from Asia, as demand weakens dramatically ahead of China’s Golden Week holiday in the first week of October.
Elsewhere, on the troubled transatlantic route, carriers are sliding advertised sailings from North Europe to the US east coast into the following week, in order to improve vessel load factors.
Another 10% fall in Drewry’s WCI Asia-North Europe component this week took the average rate down to $1,299 per 40ft – more than wiping out August GRI gains – with the WCI Asia-Mediterranean reading also losing 10%, to $1,698 per 40ft.
As is the norm in a period of rapid rate erosion, forwarding agents are touting Asia-Europe rates in the market much lower than reflected in the spot indices, in the expectation that carriers will agree to further discounting.
However, shipping lines are determined to slam the brakes on the rates slump by withdrawing capacity over and above what they need to, thereby disrupting supply chains and forcing rates back up.
A UK-based carrier contact told The Loadstar this week that, although he did not “feel comfortable” with so many cancelled sailings, it was a “necessary correction”.
He added: “There is also the knock-on effect of having very few export loaders from the UK in November and December, and I think we will have a lot of angry exporters when they see the service restrictions.”
Indeed, the members of the three vessel-sharing alliances have already withdrawn some 20 scheduled sailings from China to Europe, during and either side of Golden Week, and there could be more to come.
Noting that the percentage capacity reductions around Golden Week were “expected to be the highest across all analysed years”, Maersk this week warned of the possibility of more blankings. It said: “The situation may still evolve based on demand, potentially leading to further capacity reductions.”
Meanwhile, on the transpacific, the situation for carriers is better, albeit that Xeneta’s XSI Asia-US west coast spot reading declined by 4.5% on the week, to $2,080 per 40ft.
Container import volumes are running ahead of last year, with the port of Los Angeles Signal data, based on planned vessel arrivals, showing year-on-year expected volume increases of 15% and 20%, respectively, for the next two weeks at LA terminals.
Nevertheless, the Asia-US east coast WCI reading plunged 11% this week, to $3,032 per 40ft, which could be due to the impact of the Panama Canal draught restrictions starting to reverse the long-running coastal shift of cargo from the US west to the east and Gulf coasts.
A perfect storm of newbuild containership deliveries, weakening demand and a dearth of scrapping candidates is throwing the supply/demand balance hugely out of kilter.
Shipowner association Bimco said it expected a “slight improvement” in the balance next year, but nevertheless added that trade, freight rates and time-charter rates would remain weak.
In its third-quarter overview and outlook publication for the industry, Bimco has downgraded its global container volume growth for this year to an anaemic -0.5%, from +0.5%.
This is in contrast to its revised 2023 fleet growth forecast of 7.9%, as a result of record newbuild deliveries of 2.3m teu of tonnage.
And Bimco has reduced its ship recycling estimate for the year, to just 200,000 teu, as shipowner heads refused to be turned by demolition prices that are only a third of the current asset values of their older ships.
For example, Sea Consortium recently fixed the 17-year-old 1,712 teu Rijnborg on a five-month charter, with an option to extend, at a daily hire rate of $13,000. According to Vesselsvalue data, the handy container vessel has an asset value of $9m, but a scrap value of only $3m.
This toxic mix of soft demand and a chronic oversupply of tonnage has forced ocean carriers to slam on the brakes and blank a massive amount of capacity before, during and well beyond, the Chinese Golden Week holiday in the first week of October.
Analysis by Sea-Intelligence reveals that in the past two weeks, a further 29 Golden Week blank sailings have been announced on transpacific tradelanes, with 18 more voided between Asia-Europe.
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Since the beginning of this year, the China-Europe (Wuhan) freight train has made 696 trips, exceeding last year’s total of 155 trips. The number of arrivals and departures has increased significantly.
At present, the Wuhan freight train has expanded from three main categories of goods, including electronic components, display monitors and daily necessities, to 13 main categories of goods, including new energy vehicles, tea and epidemic prevention materials. The source of goods has gradually covered five pillar industries in Hubei Province, including information technology, automobile manufacturing, chemical and energy, general health and advanced agricultural products.
Starting from the city of Wuhan, 47 cross-border transport routes have been developed, covering 40 countries and 111 cities on the Eurasian continent, initially forming an international multimodal transport network linking Europe, Central Asia, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN countries.
The world’s largest container line, MSC, is joining in an alliance with tenth-ranked Zim across “multiple trades”, as both carriers prepare for life outside their cooperation with Maersk within the 2M Alliance.
The Israeli carrier said it had made “a new operational agreement with MSC, encompassing several trades”.
Zim explained: “The cooperation scope includes services connecting the Indian subcontinent with the east Mediterranean, the east Mediterranean with Northern Europe and services connecting East Asia with Oceania.”
It added that the agreements included vessel sharing, slot purchases and slot swap arrangements.
