Container freight rates continue to decrease for 33rd consecutive week

The red for ocean freight continues, with both the Drewry's World Container Index (WCI) and the Shanghai Container Freight Index (SCFI), losing around 5.7-6% last week. While the WCI fell 6% to end at $3,483, the SCFI index hasn't been listed for the past week. In the previous week, during China Golden Week, the SCFI index lost about 5.7% to end at $1,814.

Drewry's World Container Index - WCI (Source: Drewry)

 
As freight rates fell for the 33rd consecutive week, with sharp declines from East-West, Asia-North America and Asia-Europe routes, ocean carriers, which had problems with lack of capacity at the beginning of the year, have now tried trying to balance supply with demand to keep prices from falling by canceling many sailings. The number of sailing cancellations on the main routes was already at 9%.

China-US West Coast rates were hit the most, with the FBX index losing three-quarters of its value in the past year. The SCFI and WCI indexes have lost more than 75% since the level at the beginning of the pandemic.

Analysts at Drewry's and many freight analysts expect rates to continue falling. However, it should be noted that the magnitude of the decline has softened after consecutive weeks of deep weekly declines of nearly 10%.

Source: Phaata.com (According to Gautham Krishnan | ContainerNews)

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