The impact of the Covid-19 virus outbreak, Lloyd'sLoadingList reports, on container shipping continues to grow, but at a slower pace, according to container shipping consultancy Sea-Intelligence.
Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy pointed out that the organisation’s 23 February weekly analytical report had estimated a Covid-19 global “demand downfall” of 1.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), whereas the updated figures of its 1 March report, which reflects the latest blank sailings, now estimate the volume loss at 1.9 million TEU.
At a rough average freight rate of 1,000 US$ per TEU, this equals a revenue loss of US$1.9 billion for the carriers, Sea-Intelligence noted.
Sea-Intelligence figures indicate that the number of blank sailings in weeks 5-15 of 2020 on the transpacific has increased to 111, of which 48 have been blanked due to Covid-19, and the remainder due to ‘normal’ Chinese New Year capacity management. On Asia-Europe, the number of blank sailings has increased to 75, of which 29 are due to Covid-19, Sea-Intelligence said.
“From a more positive angle, we appear to be seeing a stabilisation,” Murphy observed. “Even though the carriers have announced seven more blank sailings over the past week, which corresponds to an additional 7% removal of capacity, the pace of new blank sailings has clearly declined, suggesting a belief from the carriers that volumes will slowly be brought back to normal levels.”
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An example of the Covid-19 impact on the Asia-Northern Europe trade market AFLOAT adds is operator OOCL (see photo) which recently has a service update on such operations.
