Despite Asia-Europe rates going south, idle tonnage on the decline

THE idle containership fleet continues to shrink, according to the latest data from Alphaliner, even as rates on the Asia-Europe trade slide.

In its recently published weekly newsletter, the maritime consultancy group revealed that laid up capacity, which stands at 483,000 TEUs, now represents just three per cent of the global containership fleet. This is down from 723,000 TEUs at the beginning of the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the trade most sensitive to changes in the supply and demand dynamic, Asia-Europe, has seen rates stumble to their lowest levels since March 24, when they were just $ 1,371 per TEU.

According to the latest Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI), rates on the trade last week fell 2.9 per cent to $ 1,587 per TEU.

This represents a slide of 4.3 per cent since the end of the first quarter. Rates on the trade have fallen 12.7 per cent in a little over one month from their peak of $ 1,818 per TEU.

Alphaliner last week featured an interesting analysis that tracked the shipping industry’s revenues over a given period of time, and measured these results against the trends in the China Containerised Freight Index (CCFI).

It found that rates, based on the CCFI data, peaked in mid-May when the index hit 1,336 points—the highest the index has reached since it was launched in January 1998.