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. June 18, 2021 A market out of alignment To state that the container shipping market is out of alignment would appear to be the understatement of the decade. Presently, there is less capacity than demand with no immediate way of bringing in more capacity globally either. When additional vessels are brought into a specific trade to increase capacity, this means vessels have been removed from a different trade creating capacity shortage on that trade. Most cargo can be moved, but not all cargo. Furthermore, indications are that the problems will get worse in the coming weeks, not better. There is a wide range of moving parts in the global supply chain and the problems cannot be boiled down to only one single element. Consequently, the longer-term resolution of the problems cannot be boiled down to any one single component. Why is the market out of alignment? The market misalignment is mainly due to all the ripple effects stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic with the Suez incident thrown on top to worsen things. However, Suez was “only” an added element and the market would be highly challenged irrespectively. The initial pandemic waves in 2020 caused a severe misalignment of the positioning of empty containers around the world leading to shortages. The boom in demand in the US combined with COVID-19 infections in major port areas led to major bottlenecks preventing vessels from being handled. This in turn serves to effectively remove vessels from the global pool of capacity while they are queuing. Without this vessel capacity and with the port congestion on top it became impossible to re-balance the location of the empty containers.
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