According to reports, some shippers are renegotiating long-term U.S. line contract freight rates, and claimed that a large U.S. importer said it had recently reduced the long-term ocean freight contract rates signed a few months ago by 15% to 20%.
In this regard, the shipping companies have stated that they will not accept the request to modify the contract. At present, the market freight rate has stabilized, and the freight rate on the east line of the United States is still bullish. Large freight forwarding companies also said that they have not heard of any modification of the contract.
The Taiwanese general manager of an overseas shipping company said that the shipper may have deliberately spread the word to shake the confidence of the shipping company in order to obtain opportunities for price reductions, but the difference between the contract price per large container (40-foot container) and the spot market freight rate does not exceed 1,000. Dollar.
In the above period of time, it is estimated that shippers will not ask for price reductions, especially large direct customers who attach great importance to credit. Last year’s low long-term contract price also gave these direct customers a great advantage.
In addition, the contract signing of freight forwarding companies is different from that of direct customers. Direct customers have a high proportion of fixed freight rates, while freight forwarding companies have a high proportion of floating freight rates. Therefore, for freight forwarding companies, whether to modify the contract price has little impact. Instead, direct customers will strive to modify the contract. guest.
A senior executive of a foreign shipping company revealed that the content of each company and each contract is different. There may be a few direct customers whose original contract price is higher, more than 1,000 US dollars higher than the spot market freight rate. Therefore, the shipping company is required to lower the contract price. price.
There are rumors in the market that there is a monthly rate, which is a special price given by the shipping company for one month. Because the market has entered the peak season in the third quarter, the market freight rate may rise at any time, especially on the east coast of the United States and the Gulf of Mexico, where the port congestion problem is becoming more and more serious. situation. The current situation across the United States is indeed worrying.
01 Long Beach container backlog has crossed the red line
Recently, truck drivers at the three major ports in the West, Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, have gone on strike.
National freight railroad labor negotiations in the United States also face a deadline. If the government refuses to intervene, railroads and unions will choose to suspend operations or strike.
This will exacerbate the container backlog at the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach and will further exacerbate port congestion in the Eastern United States.
According to industry sources, except for the normal operation of container pick-up at Matson Terminal, all other pier pick-ups have been slowed down:
•PCT Terminal no longer allows container pickup (East China COSCO);
•The pick-up and release of containers at LBCT Terminal will have to wait until LFD or past LFD time, and is already on strike (Yantian COSCO 688 route);
•APM Terminal is also inactive and slow to release contracts (CPS route in East China);
•The official website of the Matson overtime ship will now show AVAILABLE, but the actual cabinet cannot be picked up. The time for picking up the cabinet is uncertain after the cabinet is towed to the pick-up area.
02 The number of stranded containers at Southern California terminals is nearing its peak
The number of container ships waiting off Los Angeles and Long Beach is currently far from high, but the number of imported containers stranded in Southern California terminal yards is quickly approaching its peak again.
The Port of Long Beach just crossed the red line, with the number of import containers stuck at the Long Beach terminal for nine days or more reaching 28,723, a 9% increase compared to October 28 last year.
Monday was the first day the figures turned positive since the government announced plans to introduce container demurrage. The number of long-term container detention increased by 40% in the past 12 days, which was largely driven by rail containers at the terminal. The value returned to the level last October.
Although the number of stranded containers at the Port of Los Angeles has decreased compared with October 24 last year. However, the decline had narrowed to 9% as of Monday.
The number of imported containers detained in the port for more than 9 days reached 33,999, an increase of 20% compared with the past 12 days.
Currently, the number of containers detained at the Port of Los Angeles for more than 9 days is greater than the number of containers detained for 0-4 days (33,309), and 2.7 times that of containers detained for 5 to 8 days (12,421).
The last time the number of import containers stuck in Los Angeles for more than nine days reached such a high level was on November 18 last year. There were 79,729 import containers at the Port of Los Angeles on Monday, a level not seen since Nov. 9, eight months ago.
Project44 data confirms increasing container detention times at Southern California ports.
The average length of stay for imported containers at the two ports in the most recent week was seven days, a 32% increase at the Port of Los Angeles and a 41% increase at the Port of Long Beach since the first week of May. The last time the numbers were this high was in the first week of December.
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