Total 404 Posts
Charter rates have picked up in the past week with the smaller sizes also enjoying a revival as larger ships are mostly all sold out. Availability of the larger sizes above 3,000 teu are scarce, with open candidates snapped up quickly and periods extended to 2-3 years, while charterers seeking shorter periods will need to pay higher premiums. Forward fixtures have extended beyond the first half of 2025, with several charters done for 2nd half 2025 positions. The strong gains have extended to t
From Weekly Market Pulse published no 22 Oct: Asia-Europe carriers are pushing ahead with the 1 Nov rate hike, with higher spot rates offers already spreading through the market. Volumes are recovering after the Chinese holidays helped by pre-GRI bookings to avoid the higher tariffs in November. Average utilization for vessels in the Far East-North Europe service that departed last week reached 97%, the highest level since 2Q 2024 with capacity still constrained due to post-Golden Week blank sa
From Weekly Market Pulse published on 22 October: Shanghai-North Europe freight futures continued to rally on 21 October with long-dated EC contracts from December 2024 through August 2025 rising by 7-15% on November rate hike expectations. Carriers have raised their online freight quotations in anticipation of the 1 November 2024 rate hike with CMA CGM advancing the date for the higher spot rates from November 1 to October 25 as it seeks to take advantage of the strong pre-GRI bookings. The b
Market is going see-saw debating whether the higher freight rates post 1 November will be sustainable. Yesterday, the main contract i.e. EC2412 was down 9% to its lowest, still reacting to HMM's undercutting, before recovering half of the loss in the last 30 minutes. Today, the main contract continued to rebound to get back to the level on par with Monday close. Utilization has been getting better since Golden Week holidays but the doubt among traders is whether such improved loading is just b
Just when the EC market wanted to take a pause today, HMM's quotation released this afternoon (22 October) with $4,106 per 40'dc Shanghai-Rotterdam for shipments departing on 5-6 November dropped the EC market. Every contracts closed in red where EC2504 dropped 9.4% for the day. Online quotations otherwise came out mostly bullish with CMA CGM and ONE released their quotations for the second half of November departures at $5,060 per 40'dc and $4,704 per 40'dc respectively. The new utilizatio
EC contracts edging up to the recent high on average volume. CMA CGM raised its online quotations to $4,460/FEU for vessels departing 25th and 31st Oct while liners mostly keep their quotations unchanged. Utilization for vessels departed between 17th and 20th October continued to show improvement from the early October drop. FE-N.EUR Head Haul
EC opened 1-2% lower, with the main contract down 3.2% at the intermission of the morning session, on slightly better volume than the same period yesterday, when the main contract fell for the first time in two weeks. The liners' online quotations have not changed much, although OOCL has revised up its rates for several departure dates in October, reversing its move from yesterday. The lack of upward revisions for freight rates on departure dates before November 1 suggests that demand is still
EC contracts rose again, with strength shifting to the February-April 2025 contracts on relatively lower volume, although open interest continues to increase. The overnight changes in the liners' quotations are modestly bearish; for example, OOCL has reduced its October rates by 3-5%. We would have expected freight rates to strengthen in anticipation of a successful General Rate Increase. Moreover, liners are still implementing some blank sailings for November, which does not convey any confide
EC contracts up 3-8% this morning with bids focusing on the near term contracts e.g. EC2412. Evergreen and MSC join the other liners to lift their November FAK rates quotation to over $4,000/FEU with Evergreen quoting $4,320/FEU and MSC quoting $4,540 /FEU. Average utilization continued to improve. COYHAIQUE, from Hapag Lloyd's independent service CGX left Singapore yesterday at 93% utilization, which is better than the same ship's last departure from Singapore in July when it registered only
EC opened lower but then recovered throughout the day, supported by decent volume and increasing open interest. The main contract, EC2412, ended the day higher, while longer-dated contracts declined, following yesterday's trend. The main delta today in liner's online quotations were ONE's lifting its online quotations, and COSCO published its November rates at $4,800 per 40-foot container. Average utilization for alliance vessels departing from the Far East continues to increase. The MUNICH MA