Topic: Shipping container prices (Read 124 times)

for sure, that's economic trouble out there. but to what extent, we don't know. but for those, who are trying to buy these containers, now, is the good time to procure one. for those who want to build their own homes using these containers, or small businesses for their shops.
but do remember, people will always survive no matter what crisis we have. pandemic or not, people will find ways how to make both ends meet.

This ended up being catastrophic for the supply chain. The government either paid low wage workers more to stay home (the type of workers that were generally at these ports to unload/load containers) or they added COVID restrictions that limited the ability of companies to operate at ports, which caused delays.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/10/california-ports-backlog-labor/

California was notorious for this. Combined with their union monopolies and lockdowns, ports on the western coast of the U.S. along the California coastline were down for over a year without operating at full capacity.

An empty loaded container definitely not a good sign for economy, it can meant either that the production is low, maybe because it's difficult to get the production material or the producer need to reduce the production because they can't afford the raw material, or else the production still good but the consumer don't want to spend their money, they choose to safe their money because the uncertainty in economic condition. Either way, it's still not a good sign of economy the money won't flow and the will make the economy stagnan.

This decrease in prices is what causes shipping companies to be reluctant to sail with small amounts of cargo, because at least sailing requires quite a large amount of capital, apart from the fuel needed to be able to sail, the company also has to pay for the crew of the ship carrying out the voyage. So they (shipping companies) only make a profit if they sail with a lot of cargo.
And maybe this is a little different from shipping activities during the previous pandemic, because it was during the pandemic. Even though it only carries a small load, the price offered is high enough so that the company still makes a profit even with a small load.

Shipping Container Industry Overview
The Shipping Containers Market is consolidated, with a few players dominating the market. The top 3 companies hold more than 70% of the market share. The leading shipping container vendors include China International Marine Containers (Group) Ltd (CIMC), Dong Fang International Container (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd, and Maersk Container Industry AS. Digitalization is shaping the industry as companies are working to increase their freight volume despite the challenges rising in the market.

This report shows annual growth in maritime transport, although the market is very monopolized

Containers are still cargo, and they do make sense to transport.
You're forced to sail anyway, you see the price difference between ports, you load up with them and you just dump in the next port.


Pretty simple, we had somewhat predictable logistic chains, with everyone knowing when spikes arise in some ports like x-mas for example, when holidays would mean lower factory output, and so on and everything was going somewhat according to planning.
The covid and quarantine hit, China went into lockdown, consumption there dropped, and in the western part of the world, there was an insane demand for junk people would buy for their homes as restaurants and malls and beauty saloons and everything else would just shut down so suddenly from shipping 100 things from A to B and 90 from B to C you went to ship 10 from A to B and 150 from B to A and suddenly drop the whole second route since port B ran out of containers and ships since none were coming back in time as ships weren't willing to travel back empty.

But it was even worse, the fact that people ordered more from home meant longer delivery time, merchandise staying more in warehouses as there was no way to deliver them as fast as usual, new merchandise couldn't be unloaded, more ships stranded, and when finally things start to clear you have a ship blocking the most important route for 6 days (the Suez incident) triggering an avalanche of delays that lasted for months.

I think there were many forces working against each other and their result was an increase in prices.

among those that could influence the price to the upside:

1- difficulties related to quarantines. Absence of key employees at work and, as a result - ports not working optimally, ships not full, containers lying around
2- containers lying around in one port could result in their shortage in another port in due time
3- the dynamically changing situation resulted in a lack of predictability
4- additional procedures/regulations related to sanitary safety increasing transport time and costs
5- increased demand for certain products (masks, gloves, medical products). Of course, the demand for some other products has decreased, but from a logistical point of view, 1,000 containers are not equally 1,000 containers when suppliers and quantities change and everything has to be processed individually.

I don't quite understand the economics of shipping on boats (I guess that's the term?), but seems to me that it'd probably cause the carrier more money to take on a small load than it would cost them in fuel.  That's the only logic that makes sense to me, but then why wouldn't they just adjust their shipping charge to make it profitable for them to do so? 

Another thing I don't get is precisely what the pandemic had to do with that spike in prices.  I know there were serious issues with the supply chain, but it was never clear to me exactly what those issues were, and the media being the shitbags that they are, never really delved into them--or I just missed the message entirely.  Yet another issue is that fuel prices are through the roof at the moment, so I'd expect shipping costs to be either staying close to what they were or even increasing rather than dropping.  Gas prices are really high in my area, so I'd think whatever fuel ships use would probably not be getting any cheaper, even if it isn't gas.

Either way, cool report OP.

Pandemic is over so prices returned to pre-pandemic levels. Whats wrong with that? it would be weird if it didn't happen.



We are inside the most popular range of the last 50 years. Nothing to see here

As we can see shipping small or sailing small container (loads) would result to huge lost since the container is empty and the entire vessel that carries all this containers are merely waste of energy. I think the more goods the more profits they derived from sailing those containers, however those containers shipped are worths of goods they could pay more higher fees for shipping lesser container whereas shipping more reduces cost price and goods prices as well so no one would want to incur lost along the line.

I think the decreasing shipping container prices are quite good because then it will lower the price of goods and make them more affordable for customers or factories. Indeed, from the perspective of container shipping companies, this is quite detrimental to them, because decreasing shipping prices will make their profit margins thin. However, container shipping companies definitely have their own calculations so that they don't suffer losses.

What would be the implications of sailing small loads? If it's more taxes then wouldn't that mean that companies are getting big tax breaks from their imported products thus more profit for them? If what I'm assuming is right, wouldn't it mean that there's bound to be an economic problem because they're not paying their dues?

Shipping container prices have been declining since the beginning of the year to return to pre-pandemic levels, and the news says that some containers are being loaded empty, as shipping companies do not want to sail with a small load of containers. Is this a good indicator or does it indicate economic problems or oil and energy prices.