Container spot and short-term freight rates from China remain under pressure

Container spot and short-term freight rates from China remain under pressure after the Golden Week holiday, as sluggish demand obliges ocean carriers to take out more capacity.

Reports suggest vessel utilisation on sailings from Asia to North Europe this week was much worse than expected, with talk of load factors “below 70%” on some voyages.

Spot rates for North Europe, as recorded by Drewry’s WCI index, fell another 3% this week, to $4,595/40ft, and have lost half of their value since the summer.

The disappointing utilisation and mid-term bearish outlook for the market has pushed carriers into temporary capacity adjustments on the tradelane, over and above their blanking programmes.

Maersk announced on Monday it was “looking to balance the network” by removing capacity, starting with axing the 26 October sailing from Ningbo of the 16,652 teu MSC Hamburg on the 2M’s AE1/Shogun loop.

And the carrier said it wanted to “make sure customer impact was minimised” by “rebooking cargo to the remaining network in advance”.