Total 238 Posts
The cyclical or short term trend is the down turn in the container shipping volume , which has seen global port throughput falling for 5 consecutive months since September 2022, driven by the destocking cycle in the US, soft housing market in the US impacting particularly the housing related shipments, inflation that reduces western consumers' disposable income, rising share of services relative to goods in consumption. The secular trend or the long term trend maybe the fall in China's contrib
The latest China manufacturing PMI new export order index reported as 52.4 before market open on 1 March, suggesting the strongest expansion since March 2011. (source: National Bureau of Statistics). The PMI indices measure sequential changes and value above 50 for this index suggests expansion. Since January 2011 this index has produced only 51 expansionary values against 95 contractionary values. This latest print of 52.4 however contrasts with the anecdotal stories we heard about the current
This week's preliminary FE-WCNA utilization data dropped below 70% for the first since we started tracking this data series in Q4 2020. These preliminary data only covered 3-days of this week, i.e. 13-15 Feb, where 11 vessels have left Far East to head to West Coast North America. Among the 11 vessels, the utilization level ranges from 44% to 88% but all except one were at or below 80%. The average utilization in this route have been around 83% over the last two years. Resumption of services
The intra-Asia tradelanes are coming under the most pressure at the moment with rates on several key corridors already slipping to pre-2020 levels as capacity that were previously redeployed to the Transpacific are now returning to Asia. Total containership capacity employed on the Intra-Far East routes is rising again after a 2 year decline, as ships that were redeployed to the more lucrative long-haul trades now returning in large numbers. Intra-FE capacity peaked in early 2020 at 3m teu bu
The active fleet has started to creep upwards and is now at their highest levels since 2020, reaching 17.7m teu on lower idling and drydocking positions as well as easing congestion in North America and Europe. The pick up in vessel scrapping has hardly made a dent on the overall supply of ships as it is limited to smaller ships. The delivery schedule for new ships is picking up as well, with over 2.5m teu of new capacity scheduled in 2023. The idle containership fleet continued to fall, with
The Golden Week holidays in China provided little respite for the sliding freight and charter rates. There was no SCFI publication last week due to the Chinese holidays but SCFIS (SCFI on Settled Rates), another index also from Shanghai Shipping Exchange, was published yesterday (10 Oct) where the SCFIS for Shanghai-USWC has fallen to level last seen in May 2020: 1,384, down 11% from the last print on 26 Sep. The SCFIS for Shanghai-Northern Europe was 3,434, fell 13% since 26 Sep but still a mul
The SCFI composite index has fallen by 59% from its peak in January 2022, but rates remain elevated against their historical averages despite the recent drops. In 2019, the composite index stood at just 811 points compared to 2,072 points currently. Rates from China to South Africa, Europe, South America and Australia in particular are all expected to come under pressure over the coming weeks as they remain well above their 2019 average. In week 38, spot rates to the US West Coast continued to
Charter rates recorded sharp falls last week, with the negative sentiment in the freight markets finally filtering through to the charter market. With freight rates rapidly collapsing across all tradelanes, charter rates are belatedly catching up with further rate falls to follow given the rising number of vessels available spot and on a prompt basis. Shorter period charters of up to 6 months are no longer commanding any premiums over 12 month rates, while the gap on 24 month rates are also na
The SCFI assessment of $3,050/feu to the US West Coast remains higher than latest market rates offered by carriers that have already dropped below $2,500/feu and will soon breach the $2,000/feu level, ensuring further SCFI downward revisions in the coming weeks. USWC rates have collapsed completely, and contract rates have also been annihilated with various carriers already agreeing to revise full year contract rates to match the current spot market rates in order to protect their volume share
Freight rates continued their spectacular collapse last week despite the severe port congestion that has built up in North Asia due to Typhoon Muifa, with the SCFI slipping by 33% within the past 4 weeks and down 50% year on year. Vessel utilisation on head haul routes have continued to drop despite shortfalls in ship departures, with carriers lacking resolve to remove excess vessel capacity in the market beyond ad hoc blank sailings that have been ineffective in curbing the rate drops. Yet, ca