Is It Difficult To Find A Box Again? The Demand For Empty Containers Has Increased!

Less than a week from the Maersk plan to restore the Red Sea route, "MAERSK HANGZHOU"  launched two attacks on the Red Sea situation regeneration variables.

On January 3, Shanghai International Shipping Research Center chief information officer Xu Kai, in a "daily economic news" reporter interview on Weibo, said the red sea crisis once continued, container ship capacity turnover will continue to slow down, resulting in the market supply of capacity from excess to tension, coupled with the European trade enterprises may be to ensure that the supply chain security and overbooking of goods, the extreme case may be reproduced in 2021, a cabin is difficult to find, shortage of empty containers, pressurized ports and bursting warehouses, etc. The extent to which the resource turnover conduct of the above maritime transportation chain will deteriorate depends on whether the Red Sea crisis can be resolved quickly.

Today, freight prices in the industry have become accustomed to; more worrying is the upcoming delays in the ship schedule.

A Daily Economic News" reporter learned from a Shanghai terminal staff that, affected by the Red Sea situation, it is expected that in January, the second, third, and fourth weeks will be delayed from Europe over the container ship to the port because it is in the peak season of shipping. Import and export logistics will lead to the domestic demand for empty containers, intensifying the obstruction.

On September 18, last year, the reporter visited the Shanghai port of Northeast Asia empty box transfer center, a stacked port with a container temporary storage capacity of 400,000. The staff said it was basically a full state, which is an extreme situation. On January 3 of this year, the reporter again asked about the stock of boxes. The other side said that, according to preliminary estimates, about 110,000 empty boxes were temporarily transferred due to the Red Sea incident.

According to Xu Kai, for example, China's throughput growth momentum this year is more obvious. Qingdao Port (601298.SH, stock price of 6.44 yuan, market capitalization of 41.803 billion yuan), the surplus of empty containers as early as the third quarter of 2023, has basically eliminated the situation to achieve a balance between supply and demand.

In the logistics circle, the "as soon as possible, from mid-to-late January, the Red Sea event will cause container shortages in Asian ports and port congestion" argument began to circulate.

Xu Kai explained that, to determine the shortage of containers and excess, it depends on the key in the transit box more or less. If there are more ships bypassing, on behalf of the container in transit, the shore of the empty box will reduce, in addition to the voyage lengthened to lead to the empty box returning to the flow of the slower, the delivery of the port of the empty box will be more scarce, thus reducing the rate of available empty containers.

In addition, the major domestic ports throughput performance is different from the empty box stockpile situation in the crisis before the outbreak of a certain degree of mismatch; in other words, even if the global shipping industry has enough containers, it may not be in the right position.

Some industry insiders told reporters that CIMC's orders have increased in recent days. Another container trade source told reporters that, compared to the Red Sea crisis before the outbreak of the container crisis, the ordering price has risen by 5%–10%. There have been box factories in the last two or three months that have been more full.