New Year and with a time lag this is what now manifests itself as a reduction in the queue. Looking at the current situation there is a large increase in vessel departures from Asia that will soon reach California. Thus, the queues might well start growing again. Looking at global port congestion data, supplied by Hyundai Merchant Marine from multiple ports around the world, then there is no material improvement in congestion levels. Neither Europe nor in North America, when comparing the first week of March to the first week of February. The problems in Europe, for example, resulted in Hapag-Lloyd temporarily stopping export booking acceptance from Germany and central Europe for any cargo going out via Hamburg, due to severe congestion issues. The war in Ukraine Adding further problems is the fall out of the Russia/Ukraine war. This also impacts shippers not involved in freight related to these countries. The disruption of cargo flows adds to the congestion issues in ports in the the East Med/Black Sea area, as well as in North Europe where undeliverable cargo meant for Ukraine, Russia and Belarus is now stuck. It also impacts cargo booked overland from China to Europe as transport through Russia becomes de facto impossible. This adds more pressure on the available vessel capacity from Asia to Europe. Furthermore, the war has meant a sharp spike in oil prices. For bunker fuel we have seen spikes of more than 1000 USD/ton – up from 650 USD/ton in the start of 2022 and from an average of 560 USD/ton in full year 2021. The realistic outlook All in all, the reality is that while some positive data points can indeed be found, they are not reflective of the wider market developments over the past month. Looking at the data more broadly the unfortunate reality is that there has been no sustained improvement in conditions and the spill-over effects from the Russia/Ukraine is likely to worsen matters in the short term.
Download PDF file
Cookie policy