European ports prepare for a cargo drop in the second quarter

The ports of the Mediterranean and Northern Europe will be hit hard by canceled container shipping services which have increased recently, according to the Sunday Spotlight report from Sea-Intelligence. According to the Danish consulting firm, the number of canceled sailings has now reached 250-300% compared to what is usually seen during the New Year period in China. 

Sea-Intelligence has analyzed ports that will see a drop in volume from blanked sailings in the second quarter of 2020. The analysis shows La Spezia and Tangiers - both ports operated by Contship Italia, a company of Eurogate Group - together with the Port of Damietta in the Mediterranean will reduce the number of ships reaching 40%. While in Northern Europe, the ports of Felixstowe, Zeebrugge and Antwerp will reduce 30% of the number of ships docked, only seven European ports without schedules of blanked sailings. 

"The Asia-Europe trade lane is also where the world’s more than 100 ultra-large container vessels operate. As such, the calls to individual ports from these behemoths is an important part of both their operations and finances. These vessels regularly call 41 different ports in Europe", Sunday Spotlight said.

This shows that, "The capacity reductions performed by the carriers will not have an even impact across different cargo gateways, and as a consequence this might serve to strengthen the longer-term competitive positioning of some ports over others in Europe", said Sunday Spotlight.
 

Phaata (Source Container-News)

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