Surging demand in North America is distorting global container demand growth figures. US exports have also faltered as supply chain disruptions hit Asia-US backhaul

Cargo owners face surcharges just to secure slots, on top of high ocean rates. There is some evidence that desperate shippers are paying close to $20,000 to ship a container to northern Europe

Rather than creating room for repairing the bilateral relationships, the withdrawal of the US tariffs on China could be a portent of even worse clashes between the two superpowers, such as sanctions to be imposed on each other

Having hit 11-year highs this week the Baltic Dry Index bull run appeared to be slowing on Thursday as both politics and coronavirus infections once again steered the agenda and the capsize rate started to tail off. For containers the good times continue to roll and, if Maersk’s results are anything to go by, the profits are rolling in for the lines. Meanwhile, there may be growing optimism of a vaccine-led recovery in crude demand across significant oil-consuming countries in Europe and north America but somebody forgot to send the memo to the tanker market

GSBN designers from Hapag-Lloyd have also explained reasons why the German carrier joined the blockchain-based shipping platform as a founding member

Measures have already been taken to expand the carrying capacities on trade routes such as such as India-Europe and intra-Europe markets, as the management foresee a further manufacturing migration from China  

It’s still far from a done deal. Yet if it does come off, it will mark a decent boost to tonne-mile demand for tanker operators in a political position to accept the stems. That won’t be most

‘Crew logistics has almost come to a halt, the challenges are intractable,’ says leading shipmanager