Total 194 Posts
SCFI spot rates to North Europe slipped marginally by 1% to $5,000/teu but further drops are expected with capacity utilization falling sharply last week. The 3 recently launched services by Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM and MSC sailed light while the other main Alliance services also recorded sub-par utilization compared to their recent performance. The gap between Med and North Europe rates have narrowed further, with the current Med premium falling to just $360/teu compared to a high of over $1,000/t
All EC freight futures retreated last week on concerns that market rates have peaked, with the escalation in the Middle East crisis over the weekend doing little to reverse the negative trading sentiment. Apart from the August 2024 contract, all of the other contracts dropped by double digits. The SCFIS defied market expectations and recorded a 5% WoW gain after market close on 22 July which could lift the August contracts for the rest of this week but the near term sentiment continues to be fo
More signs of Asia Europe freight rates being peaked has emerged: 5 out of the 7 departures from Far East to North Europe over the last few days were below trend and the latest trend (on 2-week moving average) has been below the average of the past year. AE10 MAYVIEW MAERSK Departed Tanjung Pelepas on 17 July was only 79.41% full comparing to the 2-week moving average of 94.9%. FE4 HMM GARAM departed Singapore on 16 July was only 90.7% full, comparing to the 2-week moving average of 94.3%. T
MSC has taken 2 more secondhand purchases last week, as its total capacity operated edges closer to the 6m teu mark. The vintage 25 year old 5,364 teu EVER UNITY has joined MSC last week as the MSC UNITY VI for deployment on its South Africa Ingwe service while the 2,867 teu AS CLARITA will join MSC after its current drydocking as the MSC CLARITA III for deployment on the Upper Gulf Express service in the Middle East. MSC’s aggressive vessel acquisition drive has allowed it to avoid the charter
The Far East to the Indian Subcontinent, Latin America and US West Coast routes have seen a significant increase in new capacity injections in the last month, with capacity rising by 9.0%, 6.0% and 4.7% respectively with a slew new services and extra loaders added since June. These capacity additions will continue through August, keeping the charter market tight as carriers are still short of tonnage needed on these routes. However, the incremental capacity added has put a cap to recent freigh
The SCFI retreated last week by 1.6% after 14 consecutive weekly gains in a further sign that the market has peaked. While demand remains firm, supply has also risen with capacity injections most notably in the Indian subcontinent, Latin America and US West Coast routes where freight rates are the most lucrative currently. This has capped freight rate increases on those routes, but overall capacity utilisation remains tight, with rates still rising on the Asia-North Europe route as schedule disr
Maersk’s high spot rate quotes helped to boost short term market sentiment, but skepticism over the sustainability of the current high rate levels heading into 2025 continues to prevail in the CoFiF futures market. The EC freight futures traders were spooked by reports of a Gaza ceasefire as the longer dated container freight futures for 1H 2025 contracts corrected by 20-30% WoW. Near term contracts for 2H 2024 remain firm, with EC2408 and EC2410 recording marginal gains backed by the 4.0% gai
Most of the Container Freight Index Futures, CoFIF, went limit down today on news of the cease fire framework being within reach. But we only found such story on Washington News. No other major news channels reported a ceasefire deal being concluded. 190k contracts changed hands today, which the highest trading volume since mid May. Though, no sign of liquidation in the market as open interests rose to year-to-date high with position-building increasingly concentrated on the contracts expiring
With the rest of its main rivals pushing ahead with their capacity expansion plans, Maersk has been stagnant with its capacity operated capped at 4.3m TEU since 2017 as the Group pursued its logistics integrator strategy. This is set to change as Maersk stated last week that it will be “doing whatever it reasonably can to bring supply in line with businesses’ demand for capacity”, as it hints to an imminent reversal of its self-imposed capacity cap. The move follows Maersk’s withdrawal from it
SCFI rates to North Europe slipped back marginally after last week’s 12.5% gain with the 1 July rate increase still largely in place. Carriers are still pushing for a mid-July increase, with mixed views on whether this fresh round of rate hikes will stick. Capacity utilization has slipped in the last 2 weeks, with the launch of 3 new FE-North Europe services and bunching departures on 3 other strings adding some 100,000 teu of additional slots to the market. Slot availability will be down over