Maersk announces eastward cargo suspension
The assumption may be that the container shipping market is overwhelmed with spare capacity, yet Maersk Line has just announced that it is "suspending" container bookings on the Europe to Asia route until May due to insufficient capacity.
In a notice circulated to its customers, the world’s leading container line said that it was declining to accept any further containers due to what it called "terminal density". Maersk said that ports in Northern Europe were struggling to cope with a backlog of traffic and therefore the company was "implementing this complete booking stop to ensure we prioritize and deliver on the bookings we have already accepted."
Maersk is believed to be briefing that the reason for the imbalance is the effect of the reductions in container shipping capacity on the routes out of China and westward to Europe. This had the effect of also reducing capacity available for eastbound shipments from Europe to China at a time when exports out of Europe were increasing rapidly.
Press reports quote Maersk as suggesting that other shipping lines have imposed a similar bar on new bookings, although this has not been confirmed.
Such a move does seem to be remarkable. If it were to be due to an imbalance between eastward and westward cargoes it would represent a significant turn-around as cargoes exported from China have been of a substantially larger volume until very recently.
Of course, some more cynical commentators have suggested that this is a means by which Maersk can create a shortage of capacity and thus drive-up freight rates; supporting an up-turn in the market which has been on-going since the New Year. However, if this were to be the case, Maersk would have to persuade other container lines not to fill the breach in its services, which is unlikely. Some of the largest lines face considerable financial pressure and the attraction of increased cash-flow of even depressed rate traffic would be attractive.
A more simple explanation is that Maersk has miscalculated the balance of traffic in its network.
Quelle: eyefortransport
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