Shippers are resigned to the probability that container spot freight rates from Asia will remain at their current high levels for some time after Chinese New Year. Today’s beginning of the Chinese lunar new year would usually herald several weeks of downward pressure on freight rates, but so far there are no indications...
High levels of congestion at major container gateways have led to declining direct port calls by mainline Asia-North Europe vessels, and increased the likelihood that the UK could become a feeder market. Over the past few months, the ranks of deepsea vessels omitting direct calls and unloading UK-bound cargo at north-west continental Europe gateways have swelled,...
Chinese express giant SF Holding is to acquire a 51.8% stake in Hong Kong’s Kerry Logistics Network – a landmark $2.3bn deal creating the “biggest logistics group in Asia”. In a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange late last night, SF Holding, which operates courier firm SF Express, said the move would...
Sources have indicated that ECU Worldwide is currently undergoing a cyber attack. The company has not officially confirmed the nature of the problem, but one staff member told The Loadstar that all the systems are down. “It’s global, and it’s been problematic for a couple of days. None of us can connect,”...
Shippers face many more months of inflated freight rates, as ocean carriers show no sign of easing their strategy of keeping capacity tight and favouring high-paying spot cargo. In a customer Q&A session this morning, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said the carrier was still “flooded with bookings”. He said: “It will be...
Extra loaders deployed by transpacific carriers to meet booming import demand have overwhelmed the US gateways of Los Angeles and Long Beach. According to a survey by Alphaliner, the capacity of the 27 ships berthed and 41 at anchorage at the San Pedro Bay ports stood at a massive 579,100 teu on Monday. The consultant calculated that the 41 ships...
Global container service scheduled reliability has declined to its lowest levels since records began, according to new data from SeaIntelligence Consulting. The analyst’s latest schedule reliability data for December shows just 44.6% of vessels arriving on time, “which means that for the fifth consecutive month, global schedule reliability has been the lowest...
Container shipping spot freight rates on the Asia-North Europe trade declined 2.7% this week – a further sign the recent exponential growth has levelled off. Today’s Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI) Shanghai-North Europe leg was $4,276 per teu, down $117 per teu from last week, as carriers began to release more equipment...
The European Commission has said it does not regard the huge container spot rate increases between Asia and Europe as sufficient justification to investigate carriers for an infringement of the Block Exemption Regulation (BER) for consortia. The European Shippers’ Council (ESC) and European freight forwarder association CLECAT had presented the EC with...
Container spot rates from Asia to North Europe are now 130% higher than at the start of the year, after a further spike this week. Today’s Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) recorded a 13.5% increase in its North Europe spot rate, to $2,374 per teu – however, in practice, market rates are...
