News Highlights week: 18 - 2022

The world's largest shipping company in terms of operated vessel capacity is said to be in ‘talks’ with Saigon Port to jointly develop a deep-water container facility in the Can Gio district. 
The proposed terminal would be part of a wider project to develop an entire new port area at Can Gio, which is located 10 km to the southwest of Cai Mep, Ho Chi Minh City’s existing satellite container port.

Under the ginormous plan, a total of 6,800 quay meters would be built to create a new port that could eventually provide a design capacity of 15 Mteu annually.
This does however seem rather excessive and any actual development would likely only create a small part of this massive masterplan with an initial two or three container berths. 
The Vietnam Maritime Corporation (VIMC), parent of Saigon Port. has proposed the project to the Prime Minister of Vietnam, but it seems unclear whether a joint venture of Saigon Port and MSC could simply be awarded a concession for such a new terminal. Alternatively, such a big project would have to go through a formal bidding process. 

According to Vietnamese media reports, a first container terminal at Gan Gio could come on stream in 2025. Estimates of the total investments required to develop such a facility vary from USD 600 M to USD 850 M.

Chinese lockdowns impact cargo demand
With only Evergreen and MSC taking delivery of more 24,000 teu megamax newbuildings later this year, further fleet growth on Asia - Europe is expected to be limited.
Extra capacity is currently not needed as cargo demand in China has decreased following lockdowns in Shanghai and elsewhere in the country. The port of Shanghai has remained fully operational, but the closure of factories and strict rules for truck transport between the inland and the port terminals have seen export volumes drop in the past weeks.
Some carriers started voiding sailings because of the lower cargo volumes and not because of the delays of vessels arriving inbound from Europe.

The lower cargo demand will put further pressure on spot freight rates, which for Shanghai – North Europe dropped slightly under the USD 12,000/ feu level last week according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), down from a high of USD 15,600 on January 14.
It is quite common that spot freight rates are falling in the calm period after Chinese New Year and before the start of the peak season, but extended lock- downs could see rates further going down than the 30% reduction since mid-January.
Spot freight rates are however still 29% higher than at the end of April last year and should in fact be compared to the pre-COVID level of USD 2,000 at the end of January 2020, when the first lockdown in Wuhan was announced.