The price of ocean freight is rising again! Sellers: I don’t want to ship

Freight prices remain strong, triggering a series of chain reactions!

Since the beginning of this year, shipping prices have been rising uncontrollably, and the latest round of price increase notices has come again. The answer that cross-border people expected, "shipping prices will fall in July", has not been answered.

As many industry insiders have said, shipping has fallen into a vicious cycle : due to detours, ships gather at certain ports ; when ships gather, ports become congested ; when ports become congested, delivery times are delayed ; when delivery times are delayed, shipping companies make empty voyages ; when shipping companies make empty voyages, effective shipping capacity is reduced ; when shipping capacity is reduced, freight rates remain firm … With the superposition of multiple factors such as severe congestion , delays in delivery times , increased empty voyages , and reduced shipping capacity , the more uncontrollable factors there are in the shipping market , the higher the probability that goods will be "left behind" in transit and in the second leg.

This statement is being verified one by one at the moment.

Freight forwarders and sellers have expressed their hurt, and shipping companies have become the biggest winners. Among them, Maersk has raised its performance expectations twice.

The leading shipping company issued another price increase letter, and the shipping price continued to rise in July

"Freight prices have further soared in recent weeks. We used to think that a $1,000 increase every month was terrible, but now the reality is that it increases by $ 1,000 every half a month ! The price of cabinets increased on June 15, and the freight rates will continue to jump by $ 1,000-2,000 in July ..." Xiao Zhang and many other freight forwarders said helplessly that the price of ocean freight is close to the freight rate in 2021. There is no trick to save money now, it all depends on shipping early.

Recently, CMA, COSCO SHIPPING , Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd and other leading shipping companies have successively issued notices of the latest rate increases or peak season surcharges , involving multiple routes such as the US, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East . Let's focus on the situation in Europe and the United States:

COSCO SHIPPING : From June 15 to June 30, the FAK rate from the Far East to North America will be increased to a maximum of US$9,200.

Hapag-Lloyd : Starting from June 15 , the peak season surcharge (PSS) from the Far East (including Oceania) to Northern Europe and the Mediterranean will be increased to US $ 1,000 per standard container.

CMA CGM and CMA CGM : Starting from July 1, a peak season surcharge (PSS) will be levied from Asia to the United States. The charges for dry containers, refrigerated containers, OOG containers and breakbulk containers from Asia to the United States are : US$2,160 per 20-foot container (all container types) , US$3,040 per 45-foot container (all container types) , US$2,400 per 40-foot dry container/high container/refrigerated container, and US$3,840 per 53-foot container (all container types) .

"By the end of June , the US ocean freight price may exceed 10,000, and the price is unlikely to fall in August because the second half of the year is the peak stocking period, and sellers often have to prepare for Christmas and other seasonal products in advance, so the ocean freight price may remain high this year. " Many people have given pessimistic predictions on when ocean freight prices will fall.

The terminal is facing serious congestion ! Shipping companies strictly check overweight

Many freight forwarders said that after the increase in ocean freight, problems will be linked one after another , such as port congestion, abandoned containers, delayed departure and arrival time; then the container pick-up and customs clearance time delays; then bonded warehouses, overseas warehouses, express warehouses, Amazon warehouses are overloaded and delayed, and the number of problematic items increases ...

According to feedback, popular warehouses around LA have been overwhelmed one after another . On June 5, the queue outside LGB8 was three blocks long, with at least 60 vehicles. Even if they successfully queued into the yard, it was still unknown whether they could successfully receive and unload the goods.

The port is also very busy.

Due to the continued deterioration of the current situation in the Red Sea, including transportation delays and capacity restrictions, in fact, as early as March this year, global ports showed signs of increasing congestion and the supply of container ships continued to decrease. Currently, Singapore, Dubai, the Mediterranean region and Asia are the hardest hit areas of congestion.

The congestion caused serious delays in shipping schedules, and shipping companies all chose to "stop sailing" to solve the problem.

According to the Drewry report, 43 voyages were cancelled on the global east-west trunk routes from June 3 to July 7. Among them, the Ocean Alliance will cancel 11 voyages, the THE Alliance will cancel 7 voyages, the 2M Alliance will cancel 8 voyages, and non-alliance companies will cancel 17 voyages. The total number of cancelled voyages accounts for about 7% of the 661 planned voyages.

Specifically, about 54% of the canceled voyages are on the eastbound transpacific route, 30% are on the Asia-North Europe/Mediterranean route, and 16% are on the westbound transatlantic route.

Maersk announced at the end of May that the TP20 US East Coast service will end in the next few weeks. A few days later, it announced plans to launch two blank voyages in the next few weeks, namely the 425W voyage from Qingdao to Valencia on July 1 and the 426W voyage from Busan to Tekirdag on July 2.

Due to multiple factors such as container shortage, shipping companies had to load more cargo on a single ship, so they began to make strict regulations on the loading of heavy cargo, and even stopped accepting heavy cargo.

In order to ensure that overweight goods can be shipped smoothly, malicious concealment or underreporting of the actual weight of exported goods often occurs, which has attracted the attention of shipping companies, terminals and other parties.

People familiar with the matter revealed that the terminal is implementing indiscriminate weighing, and all containers are weighed randomly, so goods with under-reported weight can be easily detected.

Wan Hai Lines issued an announcement stating that for any false declaration of goods such as concealment/omission/misdeclaration, the carrier has the right to charge liquidated damages to the cargo owner in accordance with the agreement between the two parties when signing the transportation contract. Dangerous goods containers must pay liquidated damages of USD30,000/UNIT and fees such as container damage, overdue detention fees, terminal fees, and relevant handling fees of local customs. The liquidated damages for non-dangerous goods are USD20,000/UNIT.

Shipping companies have a great harvest! Sellers: I choose not to ship

Freight rates have risen sharply, and shipping companies have ushered in a "big harvest".

After distributing year-end bonuses that were more than 40 times the average per capita during the epidemic , Evergreen Marine's recently passed "huge shareholder dividend proposal" once again demonstrated its wealth. According to this proposal, Evergreen Marine will distribute NT$10 cash dividends per share to shareholders . The total cash amount of this dividend will exceed NT$21.5 billion, equivalent to about RMB 4.8 billion.

At the same time, Maersk announced that it would raise its full-year performance forecast , predicting that this year's basic profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization ( EBITDA) would be between $7 billion and $9 billion. This is the second time that Maersk has raised its performance forecast since May . The previous forecast was $4 billion to $6 billion. In about one month, the profit forecast has risen sharply by $3 billion, and a number of freight forwarders and sellers shed tears of envy.

It is understood that in order to alleviate the revenue difficulties, some capable industry insiders are relying on investing in shipping stocks to hedge their returns.

Freight forwarder Xiao Zhang said that the current shipping dividends are different from those during the epidemic. The fierce market competition and lack of customer base are more severe challenges for every freight forwarder, especially new entrants.

The saying "There is no trick to save money, it all depends on early delivery" is circulating. It is understandable that export sellers choose to ship more goods now than before, fearing that prices will continue to rise. However, according to feedback from some freight forwarders, many customers have gone the other way and stopped shipping goods after waves of price increases.

"I'll just lie down. If you don't ship, I won't ship either. I'll just wait for the price to drop by 2,000 next month." A seller said that freight rates continued to rise. Under panic, everyone is desperately trying to ship the goods in advance, making the cabin space even tighter, which will undoubtedly boost freight rates to a certain extent.

Since sales are not good now anyway, the seller chooses to wait and see for the time being.

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