Turmoil For Ocean Freight Imports From Asia
Market conditions for ocean freight imports from Asia have seemingly returned to the dark days of the post-pandemic period, with little space on vessels, container shortages, and freight rates spiralling upwards.
Ocean freight carriers have been reporting a severe lack of space for multiple routes from the Far East and Southeast Asia since the beginning of this month, due to an increase in demand, extended journey times, delayed schedules, and carrier blanked sailing programmes.
However, this has now taken a turn for the worse due to a severe shortage of container equipment at several Chinese ports. The ports of Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao, Tianjin, and Yantian are among the worst affected, where equipment pools are running extremely low, especially for 40 foot high cube (HC) containers.
In some instances, carriers are waiting for the arrival of import vessels in order to turnaround empty equipment for immediate export, which has also led to congestion issues.
It looks as though there will be disruption to many Asia origin ocean freight services for the coming weeks and while we are working hard to manage the situation for our clients, we must ask that customers try to provide as much notice as possible ahead of arranging bookings.
