[February Market Report] Transpacific Rates and Space Situation Updates

Rate & Market Information

Rates are expected to peak these two weeks of January and may slightly drop at the end of the month until first 2 weeks of February.

Main factor for elevated rates continues to be high consumer demand and congestions at US ports. Rates increased over the past few weeks but below peak back in August & September 2021.

Factories in China and Asia will start to close for Chinese New Year by end of January which hopefully will help ease the logjam of vessels to LA/LGB.

Port / Space / Equipment Conditions
Service Updates
Market News
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Port / Space / Equipment Conditions

From Shanghai, Shenzhen & Hong Kong, the number of blank sailings and omit calls are up to one-third of the total sailings in February. Carriers intend to restore some schedules starting from week 8 but vessels are still bunching up at Asia and USWC ports, therefore, blank sailings will remain vast in March.

Due to most factories in China have not resumed to production this week, equipment shortages have improved at most origin ports in Asia. However, we expect a quick rebound in early March as demand remains strong and capacity remains an issue due to port congestions in the North America. The situation in not likely to improve soon as Omicron has cut workforce at the US terminals by up to 25%. Customer are recommended to arrange bookings at least 5 weeks ahead of time to increase lead-time between ETA and actual departure.

Most factories will resume production after 15 Feb, 2022.

Shanghai / Ningbo / Nanjing: Spaces to transpacific lanes are mostly full till early March. For LA/LGB spaces are full till mid-March. Spaces will continue to remain tight due to lot of blanks sailings and omit calls from Feb till Mid March.

Fuzhou / Xiamen: All vessel spaces are full till end of Feb. Carriers only accept bookings under Premium Services. IPI bookings are preferred by carriers.

Qingdao: Space pressure eased a little bit after CNY as factory production has not got back to normal. For sailings within February, MSC prefer to IPI booking via PNW, ONE can accept some to USEC, and ZIM still has tiny slots to GULF.

Dalian: carriers started to accept small volume of IPI and USEC bookings. Tianjin: Space has been full till the end of Feb. All carriers only accept Premium space bookings.

Hong Kong / Shenzhen: Port operations are normal. Spaces are full till end of Feb but most sailing schedules are heavily delayed with limited sailings.

Service Updates

THEA announces new schedule recovery arrangement for Transpacific Services

The Alliance – EC4 will have temporary Charleston Port Omission, applicable from the 1st sailing ETA CHS in April until further notice.

THEA announces new schedule recovery arrangement for Transpacific Services

ZIM has announced to end the current partnership with the 2M Alliance on Asia – PNW trade lanes, which started in March 2019. ZIM President & CEO Eli Glickman said: “Over the past several months, we have secured the necessary short- and long-term capacity to allow us to meet growing demand and competitively serve our customers. The new structure, operated independently by ZIM, allows for better operational agility, and provides fast and synchronized connections to ZIM’s extensive regional networks …”

According to Alphaliner, the termination of the vessel sharing agreement with Maersk and MSC will free up 9 x 4,250 – 5,900 teu ships currently deployed in the ‘TP9 / Eagle / ZP9’.

Meanwhile, ZIM will launch ZIM Med Pacific (ZMP), an independent pendulum service, connecting Asia, the East MED and the US PNW. Starting April, ZMP will replace the current service structure, on the following route:

Pusan – Qingdao – Ningbo – Shanghai – South China – S.E Asia Hub – Haifa – Ashdod – Istanbul – Yarimca – S.E Asia Hub – Cai Mep – South China – Yantian – Xiamen – Ningbo – Shanghai – Pusan – Vancouver

However, the cooperation between ZIM and the 2M on the Asia – USEC and US Gulf trades will be extended, based on slot exchange and vessel sharing agreement of the present scope of 8 services.

As to Asia – PSW service, ZIM has been operating three standalone ‘E-Commerce Xpress’ loops ZEX, ZX2 and ZX3 for which ZIM is chartering ships to serve.

Market News

Liner schedule reliability falls off a cliff

The severe drop in containership punctuality during the pandemic has been brought into sharp relief via a new report from Copenhagen-based consultants, Sea Intelligence.

Global schedule reliability dropped to just 35.8% last year, according to data published by Sea-Intelligence yesterday. All top 14 carriers suffered double-digit year-on-year declines to register record low levels of reliability just as liners are raking in more profits than at any time in the history of containerisation.

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