Liner companies forgo freight revenue and do what they can to reduce the accumulation of empty containers

Shipping Australia, the Shipping association, said the direct outlay and forgone cargo collection by liner companies to reduce the backlog of empty containers at ports showed the huge support they were providing to keep Australia's supply chain running.

The accumulation of empty containers has always been a problem faced by major ports in the world.In Sydney, weather and other factors have exacerbated the problem, affecting the exchange of import and export boxes by liner companies.To alleviate the problem, liner companies are adding ships to their ports and paying additional vessel operation and port charges.

New South Wales Transport and Roads Minister Andrew Constance noted that a record number of empty containers had recently been exported.More than 78,000 empty containers were exported in October 2020, and more than 75,000 empty containers were exported in November. The average export volume of empty containers in the previous 12 months was about 64,000.

In order to reduce the empty container accumulation at the port, the liner company is forced to reduce the export of heavy containers:

● One liner company has successfully reduced its empty container stock from 13,000 TEU to 5,000 TEU;

● Another liner company reduced its empty container stock from 25,000 TEU to 16,000 TEU;

● The company has completely emptied its NSW inventory of empty containers;

● A ship on the North-East Asia to New Zealand route has been diverted to Sydney Harbour to deliver empty containers;

● Two ships will skip Melbourne and only call at Sydney and Brisbane to carry empty containers;

● A ship normally deployed on the Singapore-Fremantle route will be taken out of service and diverted to the Singapore-Sydney-Singapore route to load the empty containers, which the ship has previously picked up twice;

● A liner company deploys two ships dedicated to empty containers during peak season -- one with a capacity of about 2,200 TEU and the other with a capacity of about 2,800 TEU;

● Another liner company has shipped more than 12,000 FEU and more than 9,000 TEU. This company also temporarily deployed a ship to load 2114 empty containers.

● Last November, a liner company dispatched an empty ship with 1,384 empty containers and spent seven days waiting for berths.Public data shows that in late November, 2500TEU container ships were rented for $15,500 / day and 8500TEU for $36,000 / day, along with other costs such as crew wages and fuel.

In order to alleviate Australia's logistics supply chain difficulties, the liner companies have taken on a heavy financial burden.For example, a round trip between Singapore and Sydney is more than 9,500 nautical miles and would take at least 16 days at a speed of 24 knots (not including port stops).Add in crew wages, fuel, insurance, lubricants, storage, crew supplies, charter, tug, pilot, mooring, port fees and so on, and a 4250TEU vessel will cost 1.5 million AUD per voyage.All the containers loaded on this voyage are empty, without any freight income.

There is no doubt that these liner companies are paying a lot of money and giving up a lot of freight revenue to reduce the accumulation of empty containers.Faced with unprecedented demand growth, liner companies are doing all they can to clear the backlog of empty containers to ensure the normal flow of international shipping containers through the supply chain.At present, the port empty container accumulation situation is improving.