There is a shortage of cabins and containers, and freight prices continue to soar! US lines, South Africa and West Africa surged by nearly a thousand dollars, up nearly 60% in a month

Sunny Worldwide LogisticsIt is a logistics company with more than 20 years of transportation experience, specializing in markets such as Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Southeast Asia. It is more of a cargo owner than a cargo owner~

The early arrival of the peak season on European routes and the need to replenish inventory on US routes have jointly pushed freight rates across all routes to rise again.

The latest Shanghai Freight Index (SCFI) released on May 31 surged 12.63% to 3044.77 points, rising for eight consecutive weeks and breaking through the 3000-point mark in one fell swoop, with the most significant increases in the US and African routes. It’s up nearly 57% in a month.

Specifically, the freight rate on the US-West route increased by nearly a thousand US dollars, with a weekly increase of 18.87%, and the freight rate on the US-East route increased by 11.17%. Freight rates on the Mediterranean route and the European route also increased by 11.11% and 9.71% respectively. It is particularly worth noting thatFreight rates in the West and East US have exceeded the US,000 and US,000 mark respectively.

In terms of other routes,Freight rates from Shanghai to West Africa, South Africa and South America also increased significantly by US9, US6 and US3 respectively.

Industry insiders in the freight forwarding industry said that in addition to the peak season effect appearing in advance, some customers choose to ship goods in advance in order to reduce the impact of rising freight rates, which also increases sea freight volume. In addition, the United States has imposed additional tariffs on imported electric vehicles, batteries, computer chips, medical consumables and other products. Some products will take effect from August 1, which has also prompted related companies to accelerate shipments in advance.

At the same time, the industry has found that many companies are gradually dispersing factories to West Africa, South America and other places in order to avoid tariffs. This has further promoted the increase in transportation demand from the Far East to West Africa and South America, and the prices have also increased accordingly.

The shipping company has announced price increases starting from June 1. Among them, the price of the US line will increase by US,000 per 40-foot container, and an additional peak season surcharge of about US0 will be charged; the price of the European line will increase by US,200-1,500 per 40-foot container.SCFI's quotes this week already partially reflect these changes. Due to frequent shortages of containers in the market, the industry expects freight rates to remain high in the third quarter.

The freight forwarding company pointed out that on June 1, the price per large box in the US West was about 6,400 US dollars, the US East was about 7,500 US dollars, and the European line was about 6,300 US dollars, which are already very high freight levels, and the shipping company is in Shanghai and Shenzhen, where the shortage of space is the most serious. , overtime ships were dispatched in June. COSCO and OOCL also opened SEA32 regular routes for e-commerce cargo, charging only a single freight rate (FAK). It is estimated that this is a new route dispatched by the continuous delivery of new ships.

Shipping companies claim that the current shortage of ships is due to natural schedule reductions caused by ship detours. However, freight forwarders pointed out that shipping companies also deliberately reduce shifts, otherwise they would not be able to send overtime ships to cope with demand. As for shipping companies’ plans to significantly increase freight rates on June 1 and 15, some super-large cargo companies predict that U.S. officials and shipper organizations may take action to curb the surge in freight rates to avoid exacerbating inflation. Therefore, it is estimated that freight rates in July will be reduced.

SCFI’s specific quotation:

The freight rate from Shanghai to Europe is US,740/TEU, an increase of US1, a weekly increase of 9.71%;

The freight rate from Shanghai to the Mediterranean is US,720/TEU, an increase of US2, a weekly increase of 11.11%;

The freight rate from Shanghai to the West Coast is US,168/FEU, an increase of US9, a weekly increase of 18.87%;

The freight rate from Shanghai to East America was US,206/FEU, an increase of US4, a weekly increase of 11.17%.

In addition, other routes:

The freight rate per 20-foot container from Shanghai to South America (Santos) is US,408, an increase of US3;

The freight rate per 20-foot container from Shanghai to West Africa (Lagos) is US,151, an increase of US9;

The freight rate per 20-foot container from Shanghai to South Africa (Durban) is US,824, an increase of US6.

Industry insiders analyzed the current shipping situation and pointed out that the shortage of shipping capacity and the reduction of voyages have caused a chain reaction. First, some ports were forced to "jump", causing disruptions in some supply chains and affecting capacity scheduling in the East and West of the United States. Second, there were even "blank flights" in some areas, that is, originally planned flights were cancelled. , when flights resume again, they will face container scheduling problems. In addition, because some containers cannot return in time at the unloading port, there is a shortage of boxes.

In this case, in order to ensure the transportation capacity of major markets, shipping companies operating ocean routes will give priority to allocating containers to countries such as Europe, the United States, Central and South America, and the Middle East, which further aggravates the shortage of boxes on short-ocean routes.