Global port congestion worsened over the past week with a sharp increase in berthing delays at ports in North Asia and Southeast Asia. Waiting times have increased across all key main port in the Far East including Busan, Ningbo, Shanghai, Singapore and Port Klang where waiting times of up to 3 days have been recorded. There has been no increase in port congestion in the US, with East Coast ports largely unaffected by the shutdown at the port of Baltimore. Cargo has been diverted mostly to Norf
The closure of the port of Baltimore after the 9,962 teu Maersk operated containership DALI struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge on 26 Match 2024 will not have a significant impact on container supply chain in the US. The port of Baltimore handled 1.12m teu of container cargo in 2023, accounting for only 4.5% of the total containers handled at the main ports at the US East Coast. There is sufficient container handling capacity at the neighbouring ports of Norfolk and New York where the cargo aff
China’s Ministry of Transportation (MOT) has stopped the publication of the country’s container port statistics and has replaced it with summary container volume data by provinces only. The publication of full year data has also been delayed, with the latest available data for 2023 provided to November only. The MOT only provided provincial level container handling volumes data for January and February 2024 on 29 March 2024, with overall container volumes rising by 12.1% in the first 2 months o
COSCO reported full report for 4Q 2023 after market on 28 March, which provided further details to the earnings alert already disclosed in January. The unwinding of provisions booked in 2021 and 2022 have continued to help lift COSCO’s earnings in 2023, as COSCO’s unit costs are falling faster than the industry average.
Evergreen Marine Corp (EMC), the Taiwan listed marine arm of the Evergreen Group posted the highest EBIT earnings margin amongst the main container carriers in 4Q 2024, with EBIT operating profits reaching NTD 4.7Bn (US$150m) for an EBIT margin of 6.8%. Full year operating profits reached NTD 34.7 Bn ($1,083m) while net profits hit NTD 35.3 Bn ($1,001m), with the company directors proposing cash dividends to shareholders of NTD 10 per share with a total payout of NTD 21.4 Bn at a dividend payou
Short covering on the first freight futures that will expire on 29 April kept EC2404 prices up, although futures contracts for rates expiring after April registered small declines. Traders liquidated another 37% of their positions to cut the open interests (OI) for EC2404 from 11,899 lots to 7,511 lots. The EC2404 open interest peaked at 134,537 on 22 Dec 2023 and has been sliding since then. At 7,511 lots, the open interests for EC2404 amounted to some $110m. Since only the losses/profits of th
Register Free Trial [https://www.linerlytica.com/register/?utm_source=W202414] The Baltimore bridge incident failed to lift freight rates, with Transpacific rates still sliding after initial fears of disruptions to the US supply chains receded. The brief spike in both import and export spot rates from the US East Coast were quickly reversed as the Transpacific rate weakness pulled down the SCFI last week despite encouraging hikes on the Asia-Europe, Middle East and Latin America rates. The Red
Emirates Shipping Line (ESL), KMTC, TS Lines (TSL) and Global Feeder Shipping (GFS) will jointly launch a new Cosmos (CMX)/AIM2/Galex 2 (GLX2) service from 2 April 2024 connecting Shanghai, Ningbo, Dachan Bay, Jebel Ali, Sohar, Port Klang, Shanghai. The service will turn in 6 weeks using 6 ships of 3,000-4,600 teu starting with the 4,398 teu BF GIANT and followed by the 2,954 teu TS MELBOURNE, 4,636 teu ZHONG GU GUI YANG, 4,130 teu REN JIAN 19, 4,331 teu TS SINGAPORE and a last ship still to be
Wan Hai, Interasia Lines (IAL) and KMTC will jointly launch a new Southeast Asia-India VIII (SI8)/Asia-Indian Subcontinent 5 (AIS5) service from 26 April 2024 to connect Jakarta, Surabaya, Singapore, Port Klang(N), Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Port Klang(N), Jakarta. The SI8/AIS5 service will turn in 28 days using 4 ships of 2,700 teu on a weekly frequency, with Wan Hai contributing the 2,702 teu NAJADE and 2,741 teu WAN HAI 309, alongside the 2.556 teu KMTC YOKOHAMA and a yet to be named ship from IAL
Transpacific rates continue to fall sharply, with increasing pressure on carriers to lower their contract rate offers. The gap between current spot rates and asking rates for the new 1 May 2024 contracts remain very wide, with the majority of contracts still not concluded. After failing to push through the 15 March GRI, carriers are also facing similar resistance to the 1 April GRI of $1,000-2,000/feu with the low market conviction that the hikes will stick. Although Transpacific freight volume