Global container volumes to rise next year - Maersk
November 19, 2009
By Christian Wienberg Copenhagen
The container shipping market would return to growth next year and freight rates might rise as carriers curbed capacity increases, AP Moeller-Maersk, the owner of the largest container shipping line, said yesterday.
Container volumes were likely to grow between 3 percent and 8 percent in 2010 as the market emerged from the first year of contraction since containerisation went global in the 1970s, Eivind Kolding, the chief executive of the company's Maersk Line container unit, said yesterday.
"The trends are pointing the right way," said Kolding. "Volumes are a little bit better than expected and rates are also going up. We still have some way to go, and we also have to get costs down some more."
Container numbers were headed for a 10 percent drop this year, Kolding said, prompting shipping companies to postpone orders for new vessels, idle existing ones and sail at slower speeds to rein in capacity.
The measures meant that average freight prices might next year be level or slightly up from 2009 after falling 30 percent in the first nine months.
The euro zone economy emerged from its worst recession since World War II in the third quarter, helped by higher exports, the EU's statistics office said last week.
The container market would reach a "healthy" balance between supply and demand - equal to conditions before the financial crisis - by 2013, two years earlier than estimated in June, Kolding said.
Container lines with a lower cost base would be profitable before 2013, though none of the 25 largest lines would make money this year, he added. Maersk Line would have cut 6 500 jobs from its 25 000-strong workforce by the end of this year.
Maersk Line, which operates almost 500 vessels, this month ended a five-year absence from the Trans-Pacific Stabilisation Agreement, saying it was necessary to work with competitors to restore profitability to the industry. - Bloomberg
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