Zencargo Market Update: 25th April

China

Ocean

• Shanghai’s Covid lockdowns remain in place, causing disruption at Shanghai’s ports.
  • Vessels are spending 44% less time at Shanghai’s ports compared to last year at an average of 2.02 days. This is a decrease of 2% compared to January and February.
  • The 14-day average import container dwell times in Shanghai has increased by 144% to 8.2 days while export dwell times increased by 20% to six days. 
• Port congestion has nearly doubled across China since the latest lockdowns began.
  • On 12th-13th April, there were 506 vessels waiting outside Chinese ports. This increased from 470 vessels in March and 260 vessels in February. 
  • The 506 vessels waiting outside Chinese ports this month represent 27.7% of all vessels waiting outside ports globally. 
  • The number of container vessels waiting outside of Chinese ports is currently 195% higher than it was in February. 
• The 2M Alliance is preparing to blank three Asia to North Europe sailings in May.
  • For the first week of May, MSC and Maersk have cancelled their Griffin/AE55 loop and will remove two sailings of their Shogun/AE1 service in the coming weeks. 
• See below for equipment availability:

Air

Central China to USA and Europe

• Shanghai is still in lockdown. Businesses should coordinate with their freight forwarding partners about whether this affects their shipments. 
  • Alternative warehouses outside of the area are available in Qingdao, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Wuhan, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo. 
  • Capacity has reduced this week from SHA Airport to Europe and the USA.
  • Rates have also increased from SHA Airport to both destinations.
• Zhengzhou Airport has been hit by the diversion of air freight from Shanghai (PVG) Airport. 
  • Zhengzhou has also begun a two-week lockdown, adding further to the challenges. 
  • The diversion of air freight cargo has caused a shortage of pallets for exports at other airports, not just Zhengzhou. 
• From NGB Airport to Europe and the USA, rates are stable this week 
  • Final rates depend on a case-by-case basis. 

North China to USA and Europe

• The space in the air market from TSN Airport is tight. China’s public holiday ‘Labour Day’ is happening on the 1st May, therefore rates and space are critical this week. 
• From PEK Airport, space is also tight due to China’s Labour Day. 
• Some areas in Beijing have been placed in lockdown due to a rise in Covid infections.
  • This has limited trucking services due to restrictions that have been put in place to prevent the spread. 
• Please work with your freight forwarding partners to reconfirm rates and space in advance. 

South China to USA and Europe

• CAN Airport terminals are busy and the wait times to get into the terminal have reached over 12 hours.
• From SZX Airport, the market and rates remain stable.
• From XMN Airport, freight is almost the same as last week but space has become tight due to China’s Labour Day holiday. 
• All shipments need to be checked on a case-by-case basis.

USA

Ocean

• The Ocean Alliance is growing their Transpacific services to the US East Coast by introducing their eighth Asia-US East Coast loop.
  • Commencing on 9th May, the 10 week loop will include: Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan, Norfolk, Savannah, Charleston, Miami, and back to Yantian. 
• The resumption of production from Chinese factories may cause further disruption for US ports.
  • The Ports of LA and Long Beach, which handle more imports from China than any other US ports, will see a spike of incoming shipments.
  • The US West Coast ports are already experiencing congestion and labour shortages. Therefore, the flood of imports from China could worsen the situation at the US ports.

Air

• Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) handled over 1m tons of cargo last year.
  • This record volume was partly due to a shift in ocean to air freight due to port congestion. 
  • The previous record was 972,000 tonnes in 2019. This volume decreased in 2020 to 880,000 tonnes in 2020 caused by the pandemic.

Benelux

Ocean

• In the first quarter of 2022, freight throughput decreased by 1.5% through the Port of Rotterdam compared to the previous year. 
  • In 2022, throughput was 113.6 million tonnes compared to the 115.2 tonnes in the first quarter of 2021. 
  • Last year, 13% of freight volumes were Russia-oriented. Therefore, the Ukraine/Russian War has contributed to this decrease in throughput as the EU has placed economic sanctions against Russian. 

United Kingdom

Road/Rail

• Brent oil price continues to be volatile
  • The global price of Brent crude rose last week as outages in Libya add to the overall disrupted picture, before falling again at the beginning of this week.
  • Brent crude rose to $113 per barrel and hit figures not seen since the end of March due to the current political situation in Libya and Ukraine, then fell to under $100 per barrel in trading on Monday.
  • The fuel cost situation is already being impacted by Russian production declining by 7.5% in April from March. Further plans are being drawn up by the EU to ban crude from Russia.
  • Alongside the 5p per litre reduction in fuel duty – which reduced the cost of an average HGV per year by around £2000 – costs have decreased, but pressure is still high and significantly above the level of last year.

European Bank Holidays

We anticipate a shortage of availability and the occurrence of delays around the bank holiday periods. Plan ahead and allow extra time for your products to be delivered.

April 25th – BG, BA, GR, IT, MD, ME, PT, RO, RS, UA

April 27th – NL, SI

May 1st – AT, AD, BE, BG, BA, BY, CH, CZ, DE, ES, EE, FR, FI, FL, GR, HU, HR, IT, LU, LT, LV, MD, ME, NO, PT, PL, RO, RU, SE, SK, SI, RS, TR, UA

May 2nd – BG, BA, GB, GR, IE, MD, ME, RU, SI, RS, TR, UA

May 3rd – BY, PL, RU, RS, TR

May 4th – LV, TR

May 5th – EE, NL

May 6th – BG, DE

May 8th – CZ, FR, SK

May 9th – BA, BY, LU, MD, RU, UA

May 10th – BA*

May 13th – DK

May 17th – NO

May 19th – TR

May 21st – ME

May 22nd – ME

May 24th – BG

May 26th – AT, AD, BE, CH, DK, FR, FI, FL, NO, NL, SE

May 30th – GB, HR

*Not in all regions