Ocean carriers are ramping up their vessel blanking programmes from Asia as export demand weakens, but last-minute cancellations are causing chaos in supply chains and confusion within liner offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, shippers are having to navigate their way around \u2018officially\u2019 announced blank sailings and voyages pulled just days before arrival in China and held off the loading port, in what carriers term as \u2018slidings\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A UK-based NVOCC told The Loadstar<\/em> liner sailings from China had become \u201cpot luck\u201d and accused carriers of running \u201ctramp services\u201d instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen we talk to the local offices, they haven\u2019t got a clue as to what loops are still running. That gives us a headache for our export planning, as the so-called \u2018alternative services\u2019 offered by the lines may not even call in the UK,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, there is also an impact on the forward berthing programmes of North European container hub ports from the constant network changes, along with disruption to linking feeder and barge relay services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, a Dublin-based contact told The Loadstar<\/em> that, for one particular shipment recently, its deepsea vessel\u2019s name had been changed no less than four times after the connecting feeder had left Dublin port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was very worrying for our client, who kept having to change the details of the mother vessel in documents sent to the Chinese importer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the alliances are understood to be reluctant to temporarily suspend loops, despite the very poor outlook for bookings, as they fear that this could concede market share to rivals in other VSA groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, it is clear that the current ad-hoc blanking strategies are not having the desired effect, of arresting the rapid decline in spot rates, that carriers had anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Simon Heaney, senior manager for container research at Drewry, believes blank sailings on their own will be insufficient to halt the slide in rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe certainly expect them [blankings] to remain a pivotal weapon in carrier arsenals to contain capacity next year, but they need to be used in conjunction with all the other levers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Heaney said these included a rekindling of scrapping, from this year\u2019s virtual zero to close to a record 600,000 teu of demolitions next year, and, not least, an \u201corchestrated slippage\u201d of some of the huge 2.6m teu of newbuild tonnage stemmed for delivery next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Presenting the maritime consultant\u2019s latest container shipping market outlook briefing this morning, Mr Heaney added that liner strategy for the following year would need to be \u201crinse and return\u201d, as capacity oversupply in liner trades was predicted to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said there were ways for carriers to keep the market in an undersupplied position, but suggested these could be \u201ca step too far for regulators\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EC competition commissioner is currently reviewing the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation, which is due to expire in April 2024, with an interim decision thought to be due before the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRegulators are much more watchful of carriers, and any whiff they are curbing potential trade and doing damage to economies for their own benefit will be pounced upon,\u201d warned Mr Heaney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Les transporteurs maritimes intensifient leurs programmes de suppression de navires au d\u00e9part de l'Asie en raison de l'affaiblissement de la demande d'exportations, mais les annulations de derni\u00e8re minute provoquent le chaos dans les cha\u00eenes d'approvisionnement et la confusion dans les bureaux de ligne. En outre, les exp\u00e9diteurs doivent s'y retrouver dans les voyages annonc\u00e9s \"officiellement\" comme nuls et tir\u00e9s au sort.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/matson-ships-in-oakland-photo-89491467-sheila-fitzgerald-dreamstime.com_-2-scaled-680x0-c-default.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4326,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions\/4326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primefreight.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}