Spot container freight rates on the major East-West routes reached a 20-month high in the first week of January and have risen above the average of the last five years, according to Drewry Maritime Research.
The latest weekly reading was US$1,770 per 40-foot container for the composite index, reflecting increases on individual lanes to $1,785 for the Rotterdam-New York index (up $4 last week), $2,210 for the Shanghai-Rotterdam index (up $257 last week) and $2,106 for the Shanghai-Los Angeles index (up $545 last week).
On the back of January 1 general rate increases, the World Container Index (WCI) between Shanghai and Rotterdam rose by 13% to reach $2,210 last week. Drewry’s WCI is a weekly container pricing index based on actual agreed freight assessments reported by industry players in Asia, Europe and the U.S.
Drewry said it expects the volume upsurge on account of an early Chinese New Year to support further increases this week.
The last time the WCI composite index exceeded $1,700 per 40-foot container was in March 2015 before the 2015/16 price war.
The World Container Index assessed by Drewry composite index, an average of spot rates on 11 trans-Pacific, Asia-Europe, and trans-Atlantic routes, has now increased by 62% since the bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping at the end of August last year, when Drewry then described the prevailing rates as “unsustainable.”
More recently, the global procurement consultants reported that the Drewry Benchmarking Club Contract Rate Index, based on average trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe contract freight rate data provided confidentially by shippers, increased in the fourth quarter of 2016, after having fallen for more than six consecutive quarters.
