Hamburg Süd plans to expand its activities in the core routes

Hamburg Süd shipping group striving to continually improve all cost positions and will add to its network where appropriate

The Hamburg Süd group held its own in a difficult environment in 2013. The total sales revenue for the shipping division fell by 3.9 per cent to EUR 5.25 million with freight rates declining slightly and with the most important trading currency, the US dollar, being devalued by around 4 per cent against the euro.

Given the modest market growth and operational problems in the severely congested ports of Brazil, Hamburg Süd – together with its Brazilian subsidiary Aliança – increased its transport volume in the liner business by only 1 per cent year-on-year to around 3.3 million TEU.

In total Hamburg Süd was able to improve the performance of the liner services year-on-year. However, owing to the pressure on rates in the Asia-South America routes and to the continued unsatisfactory performance of the Mediterranean activities and the service between Europe and India/Pakistan, the overall result is not yet in line with objectives. The break-bulk and product tanker activities did not lead to a positive result in 2013 either.

Hamburg Süd will be expanding its activities in the core routes to and from South America and will add to its network where appropriate. Given the high proportion of modern ships and containers owned by the group itself, the focus of management activities is on continually improving all cost positions. All in all, Hamburg Süd expects the operating result for the shipping group for 2014 to be roughly on a par with the previous year’s level.

As at December 31, 2013, the Hamburg Süd fleet consisted of a total of 154 ships, 45 of which were owned by the group. 103 ships were used in the liner services and 51 were exclusively chartered for the tramp division (break-bulk ships, product tankers). In the reporting year, the first four of a total of six ships of the “Cap San” series were added to the group’s own fleet. With a capacity of 9,600 TEU, they are the Hamburg Süd group’s largest ships to date. These have 2,100 connections for refrigerated containers on board, meaning that they have the largest reefer capacity worldwide.

The slot capacity used in the liner services increased by around 6 per cent to 457,000 TEU; the average ship capacity by 7 per cent to 4,437 TEU. TEU. The shipping group continued its strategy for increasing the efficiency of its fleet. The rising average capacity of the ships continually pushes down costs per slot.

www.hamburg-sued.com/group/en/corporatehome/index.html

Quelle: LogEastics
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