The global container cargo volume has soared, and the existing container ships have almost all been used up, which has led to a sharp increase in container freight rates and container ship rentals.
Faced with the reality of shortage of ships, shortage of containers and high freight, what should we do?
There is no limit to rising container ship rents
As of 2020, the rental level of container ships has reached the highest level in 12 years, and this trend showed no signs of slowing down in the next few weeks.
The rising rent of container ships presents a sense of unlimited.
Clarkson Research introduced in the latest market report that with rising freight rates and continued optimistic forecasts, the demand for large ships in the chartering market, in particular, has not decreased. (Maersk: The congestion in the container supply chain will not improve in the near future)
In the past week, the income of all the container ship sectors has improved.
The charter rate for a 6800 TEU container ship with a charter period of 6-12 months rose further by 1% from the previous week to 34,500 USD per day.
In the ship type below 3000 TEU, the Atlantic and Pacific markets continued to be active, which led to the continued increase in charter rates. The charter rate for the 1000 TEU ship type under the 6-12 month charter period rose 3% year-on-year to 9,500. USD/day.
As shown in the above chart, in general, this year's container ship rental levels of various ship types have increased significantly compared with last year, not to mention the relatively flat or even sluggish market in 2017 and 2018.
Fearnley Securities, the Norwegian investment bank, said in a briefing on Monday that there are few signs that the container shipping market will stop its strong upward trend because demand continues to exceed the supply of capacity.
Fearnley's data also shows that the current container rent of traditional Panamax container ships under the current 12-month charter period has exceeded US$25,000 per day. In addition, the rent of larger container ships of 6000-9000TEU type has also been rising.
Fearnley added that the "activeness" of feeder-type container ships continues to increase, and the one-year rental level of a standard 1,700 teu container ship has also approached $18,000.
The highly influential New ConTex Index (New ConTex Index) provided by the Hamburg Shipbrokers' Association, which reflects the situation in the container ship chartering market, also continued to rise to 737 points from 726 points last week.
In fact, according to the index report of this institution, the rent levels of ships of all lengths of almost all ship types recorded in the report are continuously rising. As shown in the chart above.
There are almost no ships available in the world, causing freight rates and rents to skyrocket!
Clarkson said that in terms of freight rates, the Shanghai Container Freight Index (SCFI) reached a record high of 2783 at the end of 2020, an average of 56% higher than last year in the past 12 months.
Fearnley said that although the increase in the SCFI index for the week that ended on January 15 slowed down from previous weeks, the index rose by 0.5%.
The rapid rise in unbalanced demand in phases is the main reason for the sharp rise in container freight rates and container ship rentals.
For example, Xinde Maritime.com reported in "Container freight rates have risen sharply, should container shipping companies take the blame? "Introduced in "After experiencing the sluggish demand in the first half of 2020, the demand for container cargo has experienced an astonishing rebound in the second half of last year.
According to data compiled by BIMCO, the global container traffic dropped by about 7.3% (about 5 million TEU) in the first five months of this year, but then by November this year, the global container traffic dropped by only 1.7% compared with the same period last year ( About 2.6 million TEU). This means that in the second half of this year, container shipping companies have to meet the nearly 30% increase in cargo volume with the capacity to meet normal demand.
Trevor Crowe, an analyst at Clarksons Research, also said that the recovery in freight volumes is the main reason for the dramatic market volatility.
Clarkson said that in 2020, the global volume of container trade in teu is estimated to have fallen by 1.9%, which is better than initially worried about. But this number does not fully reflect the changes in the turbulent 12 months. In the second quarter of last year, the volume of seaborne container trade dropped by 10% compared to 2019. However, in the second half of the year, due to the backlog of transport demand released by the economy, the volume of container transport increased significantly.
At the same time, Clarksons Research stated that the growth of the global container fleet's capacity has remained at 2.9%, which was "under control" as expected last year.
The agency also added that the number of new ship orders in October (relative to the existing ship capacity) once dropped to a new low of 8%, but with the increase in orders, it had fallen to 10% by the end of this year.
The distant water cannot quench the thirst of the nearby, and it takes a certain amount of time to build a new container ship. With soaring demand and limited increase in container ship capacity, the global market's utilization of existing container ships has reached its limit.
According to data provided by the shipping consulting company Alphaliner for Xinde Maritime Network, the current global "inactive" container ships account for only 1%, which is approximately 600,000 TEU in total capacity.
It is worth noting that Alphaliner analyst Jan Tiedemann further explained to Xinde Maritime Network that the meaning of whether it is "idle" or "inactive" in the table does not mean that the ship is "in idle". layout' state.
Jan Tiedemann further explained that there may be several reasons for ship inactivity, including waiting, damage to be repaired, or being in the contract handover period. In addition, some ships in the shipyard’s docking repairs, special inspections, conversion of desulfurization towers or ballast water treatment systems are also classified as inactive ships. For example, out of the current inactive capacity of 600,000 TEUs, 370,000 TEUs are in In the shipyard.
According to the above data, this means that there are almost no ships that can be re-entered into the transportation market in the world.
No ships are available, so the rise in container ship rentals is of course a matter of course. In addition, because there are not enough containers in the world, there is a logical basis for the skyrocketing container freight.
