News Highlights week: 11- 2020

With a pressing need to clear out empty containers that are backing up in Southern California, the 2M Alliance of Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. Will deploy three more mega-ships to the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex beginning in late March. The 2M carriers are temporarily upsizing vessels in their TP6 and TP2 services to between 19,000 and 23,000-TEU capacity because they anticipate a rebound in containerized imports from China beginning in April. They are also responding to calls from the two ports and their 12 terminal operators to focus on returning empty containers to Asia that have been accumulating in the region. 

Figures from Lloyd’s List Intelligence show the number of container-related vessel calls at the major container hub of Shanghai and Yangshan have picked up and are again tracking figures seen this time last year. The figures saw a deep fall following the outbreak of coronavirus but have since recovered and now stand at an almost identical level to where they were in week 10 of 2019. There were 394 calls in week 10 last year and 393 this year. 
The Sino-US trade war has adversely impacted ports along the Pacific Coast, heavily dependent on trade with China along the historic transpacific route. Figures from the US Census Department underline a shift in the pattern of trade, indicating that some supply chains have moved out of China and into Southeast Asia, Vietnam in particular. That shift puts supply chains closer to the US east and Gulf coasts than to the west coast. In dollar terms, US exports to China declined by 11.3% from 2018 to 2019, while imports declined by 16.2%. By contrast, US exports to Vietnam rose by 12.5% and imports rose by 35.6%. 
Unifeeder and X-Press Feeders have started to reduce their North Europe feeder capacities as the effect of the many blanked Asia-Europe voyages starts to be felt in Europe with less ships arriving from China. The vessels that have left China in February bound for Europe often have small cargo volumes on board, as drafts of less than 13 meters for the westbound trips of some ‘megamax’ 19,000+ teu ships suggest (against 16m in normal times). (Alphaliner)

MKT