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The container sector remains Valenciaport's major force, accounting for 72% of total cargo, including bulk, and 78% excluding bulk. In the first half of the year, the Spanish port handled 2,708,318 TEUs, translating to a 14.05% increase from the same period last year.

The Red Sea, Baltic States, and Australia are the destinations that have registered the greatest increases in traffic with Valenciaport during the first six months of 2024. Between January and June, container volume between the Valencian docks and the Red Sea ports grew by 65%, with the Baltic countries by 43%, and with Australia by 25%.

These increases highlight the port's global projection and connectivity, positioning Valencia, Sagunto, and Gandia as gateways to economic areas worldwide.

Moreover, China, the United States, Italy, and Turkey remain Valenciaport's main trading partners. This year, over 12 million tonnes of goods have been exchanged with these countries (3.73 million with China; 3.58 million with Italy; 2.72 million with the United States; and 2.21 million with Turkey). The port's role as a global distribution centre for import/export traffic and transshipments has boosted trade with Egypt by 78%, and with Greece and Saudi Arabia by 84% and 58%, respectively, in the first six months of the year.

Overall, 40.86 million tonnes of goods passed through the terminals managed by the Port Authority of Valencia (PAV) in the first half of 2024, a 6.95% increase from the previous year. This includes 3.18 million tonnes of bulk cargo, 8.18 million tonnes of non-containerized general cargo, and 29.49 million tonnes of containerized cargo

In terms of vehicle traffic, Valenciaport terminals saw 316,769 units, a 3.27% decrease from the same period last year.

The massive IT outage caused by the CrowdStrike update led to thousands of delayed or cancelled flights worldwide over the weekend as airport and airline systems went black.

Though many – but not all – carriers were able to restore operations relatively quickly, delays are expected for impacted shipments as the backlog is cleared. Though some container ports and carriers also had outages, the impact on ocean freight was minimal. Houthis in Yemen continued their attacks on vessels in the region last week, including a deadly strike on a tanker.

The rebel group’s deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv also marks an escalation in the conflict including Israel’s retaliatory airstrike, and raises some concern about Houthi's capabilities to expand their target area. But with most container carriers avoiding the Red Sea since December, there should not be much impact on ocean freight.

Congestion at major Asian container hubs is not as bad as a few weeks ago but is still a factor tying up capacity and causing delays, including some redistribution of vessels – and congestion – to other ports in the region, now including Taiwan.

Even with this congestion, there are signs of easing conditions on the main East-West lanes like reports of lower utilization levels and a dip in freight rates after two and half months of increases. Prices across these lanes that fell 1% to 4% last week remain extremely elevated, but this dip may signal that pressure on rates is past its peak.

This decrease in pressure is likely partially due to major carriers and new, smaller entrants adding capacity to transpacific and Asia-Europe services as demand and spot rates surged in the last two months.

But if peak season pressure is starting to ease earlier than usual, it is likely also due to the pull forward of a good share of peak season volumes to earlier than usual in the year both to North America and Europe in efforts to account for longer lead times due to Red Sea diversions and avoid delays later in the year and closer to the holidays, bring in shipments before possible labour disruptions at US East Coast ports, and beat some new tariff roll-outs in July in August.

The rate decrease will be welcome news for shippers. But as peak season goods will likely keep demand relatively elevated into September and congestion remains an issue, a gradual decline could be more likely than a rate collapse as demand eases.

And as long as Red Sea diversions continue, we should not expect prices to go below levels seen during the demand lull in March and April when rates were still about double 2019 levels. For many other regions, though – including intra-Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and parts of Africa – carriers continue to announce significant GRIs and Peak Season Surcharge increases, supported by some shift of capacity to the main ex-Asia lanes as rates soared.

As demand eases on the main trade lanes, capacity should gradually be moved back to these lower-volume trades and prices should start to come down there as well. In air cargo, B2C e-commerce demand is expected to keep ex-China volumes and rates elevated through what is normally a slow season and into Q4’s peak season.

The ports of Felixstowe and Tilbury have all been confirmed to be suffering from major IT outages preventing landside operations this morning. Destin8, a UK port community system shared between them, also incorporates the Port of Harwich and London Thamesport and Great Yarmouth.

A similar problem was reported at Poland’s Baltic Hub, formerly known as DCT Gdansk, which has reportedly requested customers to send containers its gates while it enacts contingency plans.

In a customer advisory, UK forwarder Woodland Group said a number of ports had been affected, “amongst them is the port of Felixstowe, where the processing, collecting and delivering of trailers is currently not possible while the Destin8 Port Community System that enables all sections of the maritime industry to facilitate the movement of cargo is also unavailable”.

The chaos has been traced back to a faulty update in a piece of Microsoft cyber-security software designed to protect cloud networks, authored by Texas firm Crowdstrike.

The system pushes cyber-security updates to computers and server systems around the world, meaning that users logging on this morning have been presented with the dreaded ‘blue screen of death (BSOD),’ usually the fault of a major hardware failure.

The Texas firm says that the error is related to its Falcon Sensor product, and is working to revert back to a working update.

The problem is global, with affected users unable to reboot their systems in many cases, while banks have been unable to make payments. The London Stock Exchange has been unable to process trades this morning, and reports from around the world have airline staff hand-writing boarding cards for customers. Land-side operations at various shipping companies are also being affected.

In the first half of the year, Port of Rotterdam's container throughput increased by 4.2% in tonnes to 67.1 million tonnes and by 2.2% in TEUs to 6.8 million TEUs.

The first quarter already saw a slight recovery in container throughput with this trend continuing in the second quarter.

"This is a direct consequence of an increase in demand for consumer goods," pointed out a port official. Additionally, there is an early peak season as importers order their products earlier than usual due to longer sailing times and fluctuating sailing schedules.

Moreover, roll-on roll-off (RoRo) traffic decreased by 4.1% to 12.8 million tonnes due to a weak UK economy. The other breakbulk segment fell 10.5% to 3.1 million tonnes. This is due to the containerisation of general cargo and the shifting of various cargo packages to other ports.

Almost all large containerships have been chartered until 2025, causing liner and feeder operators to turn their attention to smaller vessels, whose owners are seeking to lock-in higher rates for longer periods.

A report from consultant Linerlytica today says: “Availability of prompt tonnage is extremely scarce at the moment, especially for ships over 2,000 teu. The charter market remains effectively sold out for the larger vessels until next year.

“Charter rates continue to rise through the course of the week, although activity levels have slowed down noticeably.”

Linerlytica noted that while capacity was still being added to run services from Asia to the US West Coast, South America and Indian Subcontinent through August, there was still a shortage of vessels.

Clarksons’ latest Containership Timecharter Rate Index was up 3% from last week, to 182 points, nearly triple the levels in December.

It noted that Sinokor Merchant Marine had chartered two feeder ships, the 2008-built Atlantic Silver (1,338 teu) and 2002-built Atlantic North (1,121 teu) to CMA CGM, the former for five to seven months for $13,500 a day, and the latter for two years, at $20,000 a day.

One of the few post-panamax ship fixtures was that of Global Ship Lease’s 2013-built, 6,927 teu Costa Rica Express, which Hapag-Lloyd has chartered for five years at $43,500 a day.

Clarksons said: “Operators seem to have gaps in their services and are pursuing prompt positions that continue to diminish, while owners are reporting strong interest and aiming for rates above last done.

“Most owners have preferred to fix for long periods, however short periods are becoming more common, with six-figure rates for periods of two to three months gaining traction.”

According to Clarksons, daily rates for a vessel in the 1,700 to 9,000 teu range have doubled from the 2023 averages of $13,098 to $51,985.

Global demand for ocean freight container shipping hit an all-time record in May amid soaring spot rates and severe port congestion.

The 15.94 million TEUs transported by ocean in May beats the previous record of 15.72 million TEUs set in May 2021, according to data released by Xeneta and Container Trades Statistics.

The record levels of demand in May brings year-to-date volumes to just under 74 million TEUs, which is an increase of 7.5% compared to the first five months of 2023.

"More containerized goods are being shipped by the ocean than ever before at a time when available capacity is impacted by diversions around Africa due to conflict in the Red Sea and severe port congestion in Asia and Europe," stated Emily Stausbøll, Xeneta Senior Shipping Analyst.

"This is a perfect storm of pressure on ocean supply chains which has resulted in the chaos of recent months. In many respects, it is impressive that global shipping networks have been able to transport this enormous volume of containers under such challenging circumstances."

The record-breaking level of global demand is largely driven by volumes out of the Far East, with China seeing an all-time-high 6.2 million TEUs exported in May (including 853,000 TEUs of intra-China container demand). This accounts for 39% of global container trade in May and coincided with spiralling spot rates on major fronthaul trades.

The latest data from Xeneta, the ocean and air freight rate benchmarking and intelligence platform, shows average spot rates from the Far East to US West Coast stood at US$7,840 per FEU on 9 July, up by 200% since 30 April.

On the US East Coast, average spot rates have increased by 130% in the same period to stand at US$9,550 per FEU. Into North Europe and the Mediterranean, spot rates have increased by 148% and 88% respectively to stand at US$8,030 and US$7,830 per FEU.

Stausbøll added: “Given we are already seeing record-breaking volumes in May ahead of the traditional peak season in Q3, you can understand why shippers are so concerned.

“The spot market is still climbing, the conflict in the Red Sea shows no signs of ending and the port congestion we are seeing in Asia and Europe will take time to de-pressurise.

“The big question for the market is whether the record volumes in May will mean reduced volumes in the traditional peak season. Numerous factors come into play, not only underlying consumer demand but also nervous shippers frontloading imports and the potential for further tariffs on China imports.

“While this combination could keep demand high moving through the next few months, there must be a limit to how long the record levels of demand can last.”

The impact of the record levels of demand combined with longer sailing distances around the Cape of Good Hope is demonstrated through TEU-mile calculations. This data reflects the distance each container is transported globally.

TEU-miles have increased by 17.9% globally in 2024 to date compared to the same period in 2023. This is mostly driven by the Red Sea diversions and longer sailing distances around the Cape of Good Hope.

However, the trades most impacted by the Red Sea diversions are the major deep-sea trades out of the Far East, which are also the trades which are driving record-breaking levels of ocean container shipping demand.

Had ocean container carriers continued to utilize the Suez Canal, TEU-miles would have increased by a lesser, but still significant, 8.6% in 2024 to date.

Stausbøll mentioned: “Earlier this year we saw increasing ocean freight shipping spot rates and wondered if there really was a capacity crunch or whether it was a case of the market panicking unnecessarily following the escalation of conflict in the Red Sea.

“We can now clearly see in the data the squeeze on capacity was very real, especially when you factor in the TEU-mile increase on top of the record-breaking global volumes and port congestion.

“It also demonstrates how much oversupply of capacity there would have been in the market in 2024 had the Red Sea conflict not occurred.”

Welcome a new company on Maxmodal. You can see Zaman Al Karam Sea Shipping services on their business profile, drop them a message, add them to your contacts or submit a special request to them

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”It will probably be positive for the share if DSV lands the deal. But how much the share price would rise depends on the price,” says one senior strategist.

Danish logistics company DSV is among the final contenders in the acquisition race for German DB Schenker. And a possible takeover could have a big impact on DSV’s share price, according to investors and strategists, reports the business daily Børsen.

”The acquisition is the big joker in relation to the DSV share. They will be able to achieve significant synergy effects, and it will probably be positive for the share if DSV lands the deal. But how much the share price would rise depends on the price,” says Michelle Nørgaard, senior strategist at Jyske Bank, to Børsen.

She is backed by Johnny Madsen, chief investment officer and partner at Formue- & Investeringspleje, who predicts a possible price gain of up to 15% if DSV succeeds in buying DB Schenker or another major company. However, he emphasizes that it must be done at an attractive price. If you buy at too high a price, investors may lose confidence that acquisitions are made with shareholder value in mind.

From ShippingWatch (English edit by Kristoffer Grønbæk)

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