Update and Analysis of The Global Seafreight Market This Update and Analysis of the Global Seafreight Market is exclusively for DSV Air & Sea and made by Lars Jensen CEO and partner in Vespucci Maritime. Lars Jensen has 19 years of experience in the shipping industry and has for the last 10 years worked as an independent market analyst. August 13, 2021 Conditions are going from bad to worse It is now 14 months ago the sharp market reversal began. The initial surge was in the Transpacific where freight rates increased by 60% during the month of June 2020. At the time this was thought to be an extreme event as spot rate indices showed rates go to a staggering 2600 USD per 40’ container. After a small pause they continued upwards and as they neared 4000 USD per 40’ container the Chinese authorities called in the carriers for a friendly chat to try to curb rate increases. This led to Pacific rates stagnating as per the spot rate indices but had the side-effect of introducing new equipment surcharges and premium loading as well as setting the stage for a rate surge in the other deep-sea trades. Fast- forward to August 2021. Spot level indications are now solidly over 20,000USD per 40’ container for both Pacific and Asia-Europe if you want cargo to move in the short term. The question is whether this is – finally – the peak and shippers can look forward to more normality. In the short term all indicators point to a “no” to that question and in the medium term there are some extreme supply chain risks yet to be unfolded. There is still no global demand boom Container Trade Statistics (CTS) published the new demand data for the month of June 2021 and this data yet again re-confirms the trend we have seen throughout 2021: There is no boom in global demand. The notion that the current global problems is due to an unusual amount of cargo being moved globally is factually incorrect. In June the global demand was 6.8% higher than in June of 2019. This equals roughly 3.3% annual growth. For the combined 1 st half of 2021 volumes are up 5.9% compared to 1 st half of 2019 – an annual growth of 2.9%.
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