The bottom of the wave lasted only a few months for container ship owners, who paradoxically took advantage of a tense environment: the diversion of ships via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels in Red Sea lengthens journeys and therefore the number of boats to provide the same service; faced with a risk of shortage of means of transport and the disorganization of certain ports, shippers are anticipating deliveries to Europe and North America; This increase in demand leads to an increase in spot freight rates set by shipowners, and therefore their profits. All this against a backdrop of relaunching the tariff war between China, the United States and Europe.
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“Six months ago, we envisioned 2024 looking like a walk in the desert. Now, of course, everything has changed”, summarized Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, during the ports trade fair on June 11 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Thus, the prices charged to manufacturers and large retailers to transport their goods – normally lower at this time of year – have jumped since the start of the year.
The average price reflected by the composite index (World Container Index) of the British firm Drewry rose from 1,400 dollars (1,310 euros) at the end of November 2023 to 4,801 dollars on June 13. On certain services between Chinese and European or American ports, they even amount to 6,000 or 7,000 dollars. The peak of $10,000 in this index, reached in September 2021, could be reached again on Asia-Northern Europe lines, warns the Bloomberg agency. The average rates are in any case much higher (+ 238%) than those of 2019, before the health crisis, recalls Drewry.
More ships and containers to provide the same service.
Traumatized by the memory of the period linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, shipping company customers fear a lack of ships and bottlenecks at the end of summer, a period when large distributors are used to restock in anticipation of increased demand for consumer goods at the end of the year. In 2024, they have anticipated by several months and reserved transport capacities from the end of winter. At the Rotterdam show, the boss of the Danish consultancy firm Vespucci Maritime, Lars Jensen, assured that the sector finds itself “definitely in pandemic territory”.
Since the start of the Houthi strikes at the end of 2023, the transit of containers through the Suez Canal has been reduced by around 80%, Bloomberg Intelligence calculated. By bypassing Africa, ships take at least two weeks longer to connect Shanghai, in China, to Le Havre, in Seine-Maritime, or to Antwerp-Bruges, in Belgium.
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