A year ago, shippers were desperate to agree annual contract deals with ocean carriers to secure their supply chains, and were prepared to do, and pay, ‘whatever it took’. And carriers were holding ‘beauty contests’ to determine the most attractive large-volume BCOs to be included in their exclusive customer portfolios. But 12 months on, the container liner shipping market has…
As container lines fail to support falling spot rates in the second half of 2022, next year could bring an all-out price war as contract rates follow spot rates down. Online container logistics platform Container xChange said a drop in demand through 2022 had brought a significant oversupply of containers, which is set to worsen in 2023 with more boxes…
Container spot rates have fallen by 10% for the fourth week running as increasingly looks like the sector could be in for a hard landing. The bell weather Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) has lost another 10.4% over the last week to be recorded at 2072.04 some 240.61 points lower than week earlier. The SCFI is now 59% lower than…
Descartes: August imports kept pace with July, down 1.8% y/y on tougher comps. Containerized goods are still flooding into the U.S. at a near-record pace. Port throughput in August came in just under all-time highs. The pileup of waiting ships off East and Gulf Coast ports remains almost as bad as ever. U.S imports totaled 2,529,042 twenty-foot equivalent units in…
Freight rates, and especially the spot market ones, have fallen sharply since the beginning of the year, driven by declining consumer demand in the US market, according to the digital freight forwarding platform Shifl. Reaching highs in January 2022, at approximately US$17,000-18,000 / 40′ from China to the US West Coast, container shipping rates have risen to around US$7,000-8,000 /…
