November202 5 Container shipping remains caught in uncertainty The highly volatile and diverse developments in container shipping show no immediate signs of settling down to a more stable pattern. If we start by looking at the demand developments, the most recent data from Container Trade Statistics continues to show a clear split in the markets where North America is negatively impacted whereas the rest of the world grows strongly. For cargo loaded in September all American cargo, imports and exports combined, declined 5% on a year- on- year basis. At the same time all other trades, which do not include North America, grew 8.6%. Global trade lanes pull in different directions Looking deeper into some of the main trades, Transpacific Eastbound headhaul volume declined 7.8% while Asia to Europe grew 13.7%. But Europe is not even the strongest export growth market in Asia. That honor goes to Asia- Africa, which grew 35.2%, Asia - Indian Subcontinent which grew 22.5% and Asia- South America which grew 19.5%. The Atlantic trade is also negatively impacted by the trade war with Europe to North America volumes declining 4.5% whereas European imports from North America are up 5.6%. The Atlantic is, however, a very skewed trade where the westbound volume is twice as high as the eastbound volume. Consequently, the supply/demand balance, and as such, the “health” of the marke t is determined by the westbound direction. As seen, the demand declined by 4.5% for cargo loaded in September. At the same time, we are now witnessing a large injection of additional capacity. MSC has begun operating vessels of up to 15,600 TEU capacity on both the North Europe to North America and Mediterranean to North America services. For comparison the average vessel size in this trade is around 6,000 TEU and although vessels of 10 - 14,000 TEU are occasionally used, it is not the norm to see such large vessels here. This is a consequence of some MSC Asia - Europe services being extended further across the Atlantic. This injects more capacity and lowers the unit cost for operating on these vessels , and in turn leads to downward pressure on freight rates.
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