News

Fracht Australia News - June 2022

31/5/2022

AROUND THE WORLD

• THAILAND / VIETNAM - We are delighted to announce Fracht’s acquisition of DEXTRA TRANSPORT in Thailand and Vietnam. With this step the Fracht Group further strengthens its presence in Southeast Asia. The Dextra group is specialised in the project logistics industry, offering tailor made solutions to its customers. With Fracht’s global expertise, as well as its position as a market leader in project logistics, Dextra is an excellent fit to complement the global service capabilities of the Fracht Group in general cargo and project forwarding. The acquisition will further strengthen Fracht’s engineering capabilities and provide full access to the expertise of Naval Engineers as well as being capable of handling large modules weighing in excess of 4,000 tonnes in a safe manner. The management and employees of Dextra will remain with the company.
• CHINA - Shanghai and eight other provincial regions including Beijing continue to be affected by Covid cases and lockdowns. The Shanghai Government plans to reopen and return to somewhat normal activities in three phases in June. Warehouses, truckers and terminals are still operating with reduced capacities, and bottlenecks remain. Moving cargo in and out of Shanghai continues to be very challenging and expensive. Airfreight capacity to / from Shanghai is increasing gradually but remains to be problematic.
• EUROPE - The bottlenecks in Northern European ports are getting worse according to recent reports by Alphaliner. Carriers on an East Asia – Northern Europe – China rotation in February this year experienced an average delay of 20 days in Northern European ports. This compares with 17 days in November 2021. More recently a container ship needed a total of 36 days to discharge in Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg before returning to China. Main contributors to these delays is the shortage of workforce in the ports and the lack of truck drivers. At the beginning of April, the Port of Rotterdam Authority said that they had 8,000 vacant jobs.
• PAKISTAN - The Ministry of Commerce has issued orders (SRO) on 19 May to ban all imports of luxurious and non-essential commodities into Pakistan.
• USA - The congestion in US ports continues to build, in particular the US East Coast. Customers attempting to avoid the delays on the West Coast shifted to the east, however this strategy failed to achieve the desired results. There is a backlog of vessels outside every port seemingly without an end in sight. 

SEAFREIGHT NEWS 

• THE LOCKDOWN IN CHINA IS TO BLAME FOR INCREASED TRANSIT TIMES. In a joint paper, Windward and Sea-Intelligence suggest that the focus on port waiting times “only shows a partial picture of the real impact on congestion”. For example, in April this year average transit times from previous ports of call to berthing in Yantian during the Shenzhen lockdown rose by up to 98% compared to April 2021. Vessels from Taiwan spent and additional 81% and from Vietnam 45% on the water before being able to berth. In Ningbo the average increase in transit time in April was 27% while results in Shanghai were mixed. Some vessels from Australia and Canada actually had a reduced transit time as well as 602 vessels from other Chinese ports which achieved an 8% shorter transit time. However, approx 300 vessels arriving from Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines and Japan experienced increases of 17 – 37% to Shanghai. The paper concludes that the impact of congestion seems to widely differ based on the origins of the vessels.
• HAPAG LLOYD WILL REMOVE THE CONGESTION SURCHARGE TO / FROM AUCKLAND effective 1 June as a result of the improving operational situation in the port with vessel schedules expected to stabilize from June.

• AFTER SPECTACULAR PROFITS IN 2021, HAPAG LLOYD HAS ACHIEVED ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN the first quarter of 2022. Transport volumes were roughly on par with last year, but first quarter revenues increased to USD 9 billion and EBITDA increased to USD5.3 billion. Average freight rates rose from USD1,509.00 per TEU to USD2,774.00 per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit).
• LATEST ESTIMATES HAVE FURTHER INCREASED THE CONTAINER SHIPPING LINES’ 2022 PROFITS TO A STAGGERING USD500 BILLION! Besides splurging on dividends and share buybacks, the previously hardly profitable shipping lines are now in the process of making huge acquisitions and investments in an attempt to turn themselves into end-to-end logistics giants.

AIRFREIGHT NEWS 

• RISING OIL PRICES continue to cause regular significant increases of the airlines’ fuel surcharges for air cargo around the world.
• CATHAY PACIFIC IS RE-INTRODUCING MORE CARGO FLIGHTS following changes to quarantine rules in Hong Kong. The carrier was forced to suspend all long-haul cargo flights in early January.

• IATA’S LATEST AIR CARGO MARKET ANALYSIS REVEALS THAT WORLDWIDE VOLUMES IN MARCH 2022 WERE 5.2% LOWER than March 2021. The main contributors to the decline were the effects of Omicron in Asia and the Ukraine war. However, year to date figures up to March 2022 still show an increase compared to the pre-Covid 2019 volumes. International airfreight overall increased by 4.7% and the Asia Pacific region added 3%. 

AUSTRALIAN PORTS 

• FREMANTLE PORTS HAVE ANNOUNCED THE REMOVAL OF FREE STORAGE DAYS for weekends and public holidays effective 1 July. This affects the common-user berth and is an attempt to encourage better utilisation of laydown areas and reduce congestion.
• DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER IN BRISBANE and restrictions imposed on vessel movements, Patricks at Fishermans Island had to implement temporary amendments at its terminals in the second half of May. These included a stop to empty container receivals and adjusted receival periods to reflect vessels dropping back in the program. 

BIOSECURITY 

The 2021-22 BMSB (Brown Marmorated Stink Bug) season has ended. Goods shipped on vessels from target risk countries on or after 1 May 2022 are no longer subject to BMSB measures including treatment and inspections. 

CUSTOMER SERVICE

If you would like further information about any of the above items, please contact one of our friendly Fracht Team members at fracht@frachtsyd.com.au