General

According to the forecast of Moody's Investor Service, an investment agency, ocean freight rates will remain at a record high in 2021.

Shipping consulting agency Sea-Intelligence also predicts that this year's soaring container freight rates may continue until next spring, and the high demand for container ships and container equipment will also continue, and the U.S. line freight rate may increase by another 25%.

August data:

The freight cost of a container has exceeded US$2w, and the freight cost of some goods with lower profits is even more than half of the value of the goods.

Compared with 2020, this fee is less than 4k US dollars, and it was about 1w1 US dollars at the end of July. Compared with the same period last year, international sea freight has skyrocketed by 500%!

Singapore Pacific Shipping Group Executive Chairman Zhang Songsheng said: "Because the capacity is suppressed, the rent of the ship has also increased. A Panamanian ship with 4,200 boxes can only cost a few thousand to ten thousand US dollars a day, and now the highest is 40,000, 5 Ten thousand dollars, if you may be anxious, you can see 100,000 dollars a day."

01

Overfilled, U.S. ports are out of control

The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, as two typical large ports with global port congestion, are almost out of control. The number of container ships waiting in line to call at the port broke the record!

August data shows:

90% of the ships in the Port of Los Angeles head directly to the anchorage, and then wait for an average of 7-8 days to berth! Bloomberg data shows;

As of the evening of August 27, there were 44 container ships berthed outside these two ports, this number set a new record of 40 ships in early February this year;

According to reports, at least a dozen cargo ships are parked in a place waiting to enter the port of Savannah (Savannah). In August, the Long Beach/Los Angeles wharf held an average of 28 ships per day, and the rest flocked to the "boat yard" in San Pedro Bay.

02

Shipments from September to October will increase significantly

Statistics show that the United States now has a 40% container imbalance gap, which means that for every 10 containers that arrive at US ports, 4 of them will remain stranded, and the further decline in the utilization rate of boxes will also lead to an increase in freight rates.

The rapid spread of Delta has once again increased the uncertainty of international shipping. The Biden administration has stated that straightening out the supply chain is an increasingly important priority. Last week, the White House appointed a port envoy to solve the congestion problem in US ports, and the most recent bipartisan infrastructure agreement also includes a $17 billion investment in port infrastructure.

The industry predicts that the volume of cargo arriving at US ports in late September and October will increase significantly, but during the upcoming peak shipment period, the above solutions may not provide much room for relief from the current port congestion.

03

The epidemic has disrupted the international logistics supply chain, what else can we do?

Freight rates are rising at an astronomical rate, and shipping time has been significantly extended. The cargo in each port is at a deadlock. Shippers are scrambling to find ways to bring their cargo to the market in time during the Christmas sales season:

The two largest retailers in the United States, Wal-Mart and Home Depot, are renting their own ships to retrieve their products;

Urban Outfitters is also shifting from sea to air transportation, hoping to bypass the blocked port before the holiday to catch the goods on the holiday;

And Amazon is also strengthening its cargo fleet;