 Anger as Maersk susps contract bookings, sparking scramble for capacity |
Source |
American Shipper |
Post Date |
04/13/2021 |
|
Maersk¡¯s decision to ¡°temporarily susp¡± spot and short-term contract bookings from Asia following the Suez Canal blockage has left forwarders and NVOCCs scrambling for natives.
The carrier said on Tuesday it estimated a loss of capacity across its network of up to 30% ¡°over multiple weeks¡±, in addition to equipment shortages in Asia.
One UK forwarder The Loadstar spoke to today said although he appreciated the difficulties for Maersk, he was ¡°shocked¡± it had decided not to honour its short-term contracts.
¡°Spot is one thing, but we had a price and a volume agreed with Maersk for three months, which they are now apparently ripping up. We expected to be rolled, but not have our contracted bookings refused,¡± he said. Maersk makes no secret that it sees its future in increasing its share of the s long-term contract business, compared to the extreme volatility of the spot market.
Indeed, chief utive Soren Skou advised, during Maersk¡¯s 2020 earnings call in February, that around 40% of its annual contracts had been renewed with ¡°significant increases¡± obtained.
Maersk achieved a full-year profit of $2.9bn from an average freight rate of $1,000 per teu ¨C new contract rates will have been set at substantially more.
Prior to the Suez Canal disruption, some Asia-Europe shippers were reluctant to agree longer-term deals with carriers, having seen prices for North Europe decline some 12% from their February peak.
Maersk¡¯s booking stop on its spot and short-term contracts will force shippers into the arms of carriers that have less commitment to annual contracts and will likely be able to command higher spot rates. ¡°They might choose different ways on how to manage their booking intake ¨C but will face the same types of constraints,¡± said Lars Jensen, of SeaIntelligence. He suggested some carriers would choose to accept bookings and ¡°subsequently apologise for having to roll the cargo for a week or two¡±.
Freightos research lead Judah Levine said: ¡°The reduction in capacity and the resulting shortage of containers back in Asian origin ports could put renewed pressure on ocean rates.¡±
And Forto, the Berlin-headquartered digital supply chain platform said that, prior to Suez, it had been ¡°assumed that the enormous increase in freight rates due to the pandemic would slowly calm down in Q2. ¡°Now a further increase is to be expected, which will certainly continue until Q3,¡± it said.
Meanwhile, only around a third of Asia-US east coast volumes transit the Suez Canal, thus the impact on the transpacific tradelane will be much less than for Asia-Europe, however there will be an indirect impact from the snarl-up of equipment.
Demand remains very strong with the port of Los Angeles¡¯ Signal data port foreer predicting year-on-year volume increases of 56% and 47%
|
|
|
|
