March 4, 2024 – The Port of Montreal issued a reminder on Friday that the Maritime Employers Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 375 – Montreal Longshoremen continue to wait for a decision from the Canada Industrial Relations Board on the MEA’s application to recognize the work of the local’s members as essential. The two parties provided information requested by the CIRB on or before February 23. Until a decision has been announced, neither party is allowed to apply pressure of any kind on the other. The port remains fully operational.
February 25, 2024 – Transpacific container spot rates remain high as the contracting season moves into gear; however, new contract proposals from carriers may get the cold shoulder. With ocean carriers, BCOs, shippers and freight forwarders assembling in their hundreds for the JoC TPM conference in Long Beach in a week’s time – the traditional start of the transpacific contract season – the lines will believe they are in the perfect position to push for substantial contract rate hikes.However, anecdotal reports suggest carrier account negotiators at TPM24, endeavouring to persuade customers to sign up for long-term deals, will be in for a challenging few days across the meeting rooms and halls of the Long Beach convention centre.
February 2, 2024 – With one week left to go to the Lunar new year, the Red Sea situation continues to keep ocean shipping rates artificially high as carriers continue to demand excess surcharges. However, rates are predicted to ease somewhat globally once the Lunar new year happens next week. More as it develops.
January 28, 2024 – Airfreight rates in January climbed as the month progressed due to the approaching Lunar New Year holiday and anecdotal reports of a move from sea to air due to the Red Sea crisis. The latest figures from the Baltic Exchange Airfreight Index (BAI) show that, in the last full week of January, rates from Hong Kong to North America climbed 8.4% on a week earlier, to $5.15 per kg. Airfreight rate data provider TAC Index said the increase was expected. “The increase is in line with expectations that rates may spike following disruption to ocean shipping in the Red Sea, though sources also point out that rates often rise in the runup to Chinese New Year,” TAC said in a weekly market round-up. This year the Lunar New Year holiday falls on February 10 compared with January 22 last year.
January 8, 2024 – Spot freight rates are the leading indicator of the mounting repercussions from ongoing disruptions to the shipping industry due to security problems in the Red Sea. With the attacks continuing, nearly 20 major carriers have reported that they are rerouting vessels, adding to travel time and expense, which is quickly being reflected in the spot price for shipping, as well as the growing concerns of impacts to supply chains and a renewal of port congestion. Analytics firm Drewry provided its first report of 2024 on its closely watched World Container Index and to no surprise rates have skyrocketed. In one week, Drewey calculates the composite index is up by two-thirds (61 percent) per 40-foot container and stands 25 percent above the end of 2022/start of 2023. The latest Drewry World Container Index composite is 88 percent higher than the 2019 average. Predictability, the highest increases are on the routes most directly impacted, i.e. those using the Suez Canal. Freight rates from Shanghai to Rotterdam, for example, are up by 115 percent. The increases for shipping containers to the Mediterranean are also up more than 100 percent, while rates from Asia to North America are up a more modest 26 to 30 percent.
January 2, 2024 – Happy New Year! On December 22, the Maritime Employers Association issued the following update."Parties have had several mediation meetings in the last weeks, supported by the experts of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and more meetings are planned in January. "We want to remind you that a demand for maintaining essential activities, in accordance with the requirements of the Canada Labour Code, is still pending at the Canada Industrial Relations Board. "The CIRB has requested more information [from] the parties, [with] responses [due] at the end of January; no pressures tactics can occur before a ruling. "Our priority remains the signing of a negotiated collective agreement." This means that no labour disruption is possible until the ruling has been made, which appears to be moving into February at the earliest. The port remains fully functional in the meantime.
December 25, 2023 – As we finish the year, we wanted to wish our clients and partners a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
December 22, 2023 – After a month of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the number of boxships diverting away from the Red Sea-Suez Canal route is reaching epic proportions, according to supply chain insiders. This backbone of east-west trade is suddenly taking a back seat to the traditional route around the Cape of Good Hope, which adds 1,900 nautical miles and 10 days onto a typical Asia-North Europe container service. According to various sources, there were about 120 container ships totaling 700,000 TEU taking the Cape route as of Wednesday morning. This passage is made regularly by VLCCs and Capesize bulkers, which cannot fit through the Suez Canal, but is almost never used by boxships with their valuable and time-sensitive cargoes. The only other time in recent shipping history when boxships made a mass U-turn towards Africa’s southern tip was in 2021, when the boxship Ever Given went aground and fully blocked the Suez Canal for five days. We will advise our Canaan customers individually but please be advised that additional charges and delays will likely be incurred.
December 18, 2023 – Shipping giants Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd both confirmed on Friday that they have paused all planned transits of the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, while the shipping industry is calling for immediate actions and a stop to the “flagrant breach of international law” that is risking the lives of seafarers and global trade. The actions came after the recent escalation, which saw a missile land close to a Maersk containership on Thursday, a confirmed strike on a Hapag vessel on Friday, and two MSC containerships targeted by the Houthi with one possibly struck.
December 11, 2023 – Confidence in the Panama Canal to process container vessel transits appears to have completely bombed over the past week. “Multiple carriers have revealed changes to imminent voyages by removing the Panama Canal, signalling a continued loss of confidence in the passage in the weeks to come,” said eeSea operations and forecasting analyst Destine Ozuygur. However, expectations that this might result in an increase in vessels transiting the Suez Canal have been dented by the recent attacks on commercial shipping by Houthi rebels, off the coast of Yemen.
“It seems many vessels that had originally planned to utilize a divergent route through the Suez Canal are now avoiding the area for fear of the safety of their crew and the vessels,” Ozuygur said. “For the first time in recent memory, we could possibly see a significant downturn of traffic through the Suez and the Panama canals, with a high volume of vessels preferring passage past the Cape of Good Hope."