According to the latest market intelligence from Xeneta’s Shipping Index Public Indices report for the long-term contract market, prices escalated across all major global trade corridors in April, with no immediate relief for shippers in sight.
The Xeneta Shipping Index crowd sources the very latest long-term contracted rates from leading shippers and freight forwarders, utilizing over 280 million data points, with more than 160,000 port-to-port pairings, to deliver real-time rates insights every month.
“In the US we continue to see severe delays and bottlenecks, with strong demand – driven in part by changing e-commerce habits – driving rate development.
Furthermore, shippers with cargoes on the affected ships have had initial delays to goods exacerbated by carriers dumping containers wherever they can in a rush to load available empty containers and get back on track.
In Europe the imports benchmark continued towards the stratosphere, climbing by 5.4% month-on-month to end 43% up against April 2020, and a huge 47.7% up since the start of 2021.
Far East imports edged up 0.2%, some 15.7% up against the same period last year, while exports showed more marked improvement – appreciating a further 5.3% month-on-month to stand 43.9% up against April 2020 and exports rising 3.3%.
For example, OOCL has revealed revenues of USD 3billion for the first quarter, a staggering 96% higher than this time last year, driven by both higher volumes and significantly higher revenues per container, up 58.3%.
“It’s also worth noting pro-active strategies from some players to make the most of market opportunity.