News Highlights week: 23 - 2024

South Korea’s Dong Young Shipping recently took delivery of the 961 teu container vessel PEGASUS DREAM from its compatriot shipyard Dae Sun. 
The small gearless ship is the first of two ‘Dae Sun 1000 Mk-II’ sisters that shipyard is building for the Korean regional line. Dong Young ordered the pair in early 2022 for a reported price of USD 22 M per unit. 

The PEGASUS DREAM is 146.50 m long and 23.60 m wide. The vessel is powered by a MAN B&W 6 S46ME-B8.3 main engine that develops 6,290 kW and drives the ship at speeds of up to 18 knots. 
Dong Young has chosen to deploy its latest vessel on its ‘Korea - Haiphong Express’ service ‘BKH’ (see details), a loop that calls Incheon, Kwangyang, Busan, Haiphong, Xiamen, Incheon with three ships on a 21-day round trip.
Spot ocean freight rates climb towards pandemic highs 
The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange last Friday 31 May showed a 12.6% increase in spot ocean rates ex Shanghai, which was the tenth consecutive week of rising rate levels. 

At 3,045 points, the rate index is still well below it’s historical peak of 5,110 points registered on 7 January 2022 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. A comparison however shows that average spot rates are almost three times higher than a year ago. 
Spot ocean freight rates have been rising rapidly since early April due to a combination of strong cargo demand in China and a shortage of ships. 
A recent Alphaliner report in mid-May (see Alphaliner newsletter 2024-20) showed that the big alliance carriers were short of 36 vessels to fully staff all their Far East—Europe loops, which are being re-routed via the Cape of Good Hope due to the attacks on merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden.