In the current volatile ocean freight environment it’s either feast or famine.
Or so it seems based on the forecast of empty container distribution as supply chains begin to normalise.
Maritime consultancy Sea-Intelligence has analysed the eventual normalisation of supply chains, and the potential ramifications for the flow of empty containers. “The underlying data for this model comes from the Flexport Ocean Timeliness Indicator (OTI) data, which measures the time it takes from when the cargo is ready at the exporter until the importer takes delivery,” says CEO Alan Murphy. “Pre-pandemic, the transportation time was 45 days on average, peaking at a transportation time of 112 days in February, which has since been reduced to 88 days, as per the measurement on August 26.”
As transportation times were extended, containers became tied up in the longer supply chain, which is what caused the initial increases in freight rates in the second half of 2020, as not enough empty containers could be moved back out to Asia in time, Murphy explains.
“With a massive shortage of empty containers, carriers had to order new containers to be manufactured in Asia, and these were then fed into the extended supply chains. As transportation time is now getting shorter, these additional containers will be released back out of the supply chain, and they will start to pile up, primarily in Europe and the US.”
This was predicted in February 2022, and this week Murphy analysed whether the prediction was on track.
“The blue line in figure 1 shows our current projection of excess empty containers that will be released into North America, just from the Transpacific trade, and the orange line shows our projection from February. If transportation time is back to “normal” by early next year, we will see the release of 4.3 million TEUs of excess containers into North America, which cannot be expatriated within the planned network operations.
“This,” he says, “will potentially overwhelm empty container depots in the US, an issue which is already beginning to materialise.”
