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APART
from hanging onto the westbound rate increase
obtained in December, ocean carriers operating
between Asia and the Mediterranean achieved
little in the first quarter of the year
and this may only be the lull before the
storm, according to Drewry Maritime Research.
Ocean
carriers continued to suffer from lack of
cargo growth in the tradelane between Asia
and the Mediterranean during the first three
months of the year with westbound cargo
remaining flat.
Although
February's level of 268,000 TEU was exceptionally
low, this was only due to part of the month's
traffic being shipped ahead of the Chinese
New Year holiday season, which started on
February 10 this year.
The
average for the quarter still reached 342,000
TEU per month, which was only just below
the previous quarter's 356,000 TEU, and
the third quarter 2012 average of 355,000
TEU.
As
in other major east-west tradelanes, ocean
carriers' response to the growth stagnation
in the first quarter of 2013 was to cancel
more sailings. Eighteen were withdrawn in
January, followed by 15 in February, and
another seven were announced at the beginning
of March. No end-to-end services were merged
or withdrawn, only minor modifications to
port calls were made.
Interestingly,
the average size of all the 135 vessels
deployed in the 14 weekly end-to-end services
between Asia and the Mediterranean in March
only reached 8,436 TEU, compared to 8,200
TEU for the 149 vessels deployed in 15 services
in October.
The
result is that very little change was made
to effective westbound vessel capacity,
despite the withdrawal of Maersk's AE5 Turkey
Express service in November (which deployed
8 x 6,600 TEU ships). March's average of
449,126 TEU is only just below October's
452,238 TEU, with November's low of 436,550
TEU a distant memory.
Even
so, average vessel utilisation still reached
91 per cent in January, following on from
December's high of 92 per cent due to the
way shippers brought cargo forward to avoid
the Chinese New Year holiday period in February.
The 18 sailing cancellations mentioned earlier
also contributed enormously to the result.
Being
artificially created, February's disastrous
decline to 61 per cent was inevitable, with
March's return to 79 per cent still remaining
poor. It may be that more sailings were
cancelled later on in March, which would
have improved the situation a little.
There
was also little good news for ocean carriers
on the route back to Asia in the first quarter
of 2013, when the average monthly cargo
flow reached only 155,000 TEU, 6.6 per cent
less than in the previous quarter, and more-or-less
the same as in the third quarter of 2012.
Effective
eastbound vessel capacity in the first quarter
of 2013 was 1.2 per cent higher than in
the previous quarter, so, when combined
with 6.6 per cent reduction in cargo, average
vessel utilisation declined from 49 per
cent to 46 per cent, putting ocean carriers
in a desperate position. With half empty
ships, it is hardly surprising that shippers
wanted lower freight rates from those desperate
enough to seek more market share.
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