What is going to happen to sea freight rates in 2018?
Freight rates in the container shipping industry have declined over recent years as the world economy stagnated and the industry became clogged with over-capacity. Typically rates have decreased by 40% in real terms over a four year period on major world trade lanes.
One of the big causes of over capacity has been the increase in the size of ships, with all major carriers ordering ships in the 18000 – 22000 TEU unit size (TEU = twenty foot equivalent unit).
Shipping Line Alliances
Shipping Line Alliances:
You may be under the impression that there are a whole host of shipping lines operating on the world’s major trade lanes, all competing against each other to carry your business.
The reality has been rather different for quite some time as the shipping lines operating on the major trade lanes have formed a series of alliances that have pooled their ships and operational infrastructure and so operationally they operate as one company.
Freight prices from China 2017
We thought you might be interested to know the trends in 2017 for the sea freight container market from the Far East and China in particular to the UK.
According to consultancy Xeneta, container lines operating on Asia-Europe trades are “taking stronger measures” than usual to maintain the recent recovery in ocean freight prices. These stronger measures amount to a 33% cut in sailings immediately prior to Chinese New Year followed by 43% cuts in sailing post Chinese New Year.
SOLAS regulations – Container Weighing
If you or your suppliers send goods by sea in containers will become mandatory for all containers worldwide to have their Verified Gross Mass (gross weight) declared prior to loading on a ship from 1 July 2016.
This is an important change from the current system where weights are advised at the time of booking by the party loading the container and this weight is passed to the ship’s owner,
Shipping containers will need accurate payload weight from July 2016
From July this year an import change to the SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) regulations comes into effect that will impact on all containers sent by ship, worldwide. Each container’s gross mass will have to be declared at export using weighing equipment that has been certified as being accurate.
The background is that overweight containers played a key role in the breakup and beaching of the MSC Napoli in the United Kingdom in 2007,
Identifying dangerous goods incorrectly can have massive consequences
The implications of an event such as that which took place in Tianjin will probably take many months to emerge. Investigations are still on going. The significant human cost and infrastructure damage to a key port serve as a vivid ‘call to action’ to the entire supply chain industry in relation to dangerous goods, whether on land, at sea, or in the air.
The cause of the original fire and subsequent explosions are uncertain,
Lithium battery causes emergency landing
Just days after the FAA issued a strong warning about the risk of unstoppable fires from lithium battery shipments, an Alaska Airlines passenger flight from Newark to Seattle made an emergency landing in Buffalo after a credit card reader, used as the point of sale for onboard purchases of food and drink, began to overheat and smoke in the cabin of the aircraft. The card reader, which was powered by a lithium-ion battery,
Container shipping set to make a loss in 2015. Bad news for all in the long run.
A toxic mixture of over capacity, weak demand and predatory pricing by some of the larger players is forecast to produce a loss for the whole industry in 2015.
Earlier this year the respected industry consultancy, Drewry forecast that shipping container carriers would collectively make $8 billon profit in 2015. They have now revised their forecast and advise that they will be lucky to break even. The more likely scenario is that the majority of carriers will be in the red.
Anti Dumping duty – what I need to know
There is a type of customs duty that that causes particular concern and confusion – Anti Dumping Duty.
In recent times there has been an increase in investigations to recover Anti Dumping Duties (ADD) retrospectively and most of these have been conducted by the European Anti Fraud Office ( OLAF).
Anti Dumping duties (ADD) are an additional duty amount charged when the EU consider goods are imported into the EU at below a fair market rate.
K&L Freight sponsor leading industry awards
K&L Freight are confirmed as one of the sponsors for The BIFA Freight Service Awards 2015 competition which will culminate in a glittering Luncheon Ceremony on Thursday 21st January 2016 at The Brewery, in the City of London.
The awards celebrate the best service and innovation within the International Freight industry with awards in a number of different categories.
As one of the awards ceremony sponsors K&L Freight is delighted to be able lend its support to this prestigious event.