DCN September Edition 2019

LINER TRADES TO EUROPE
almost all of the previous port calls offered and, thanks to the
increase in size from NEMO/EAX’s 6300-7300 TEU and AES’s
6250-7500 TEU to the mooted 9500 TEU, little real capacity will
be lost, especially given the reality of how much of this capacity
actually serves the Europe trade anyway.
One coincidental change, a product of internal group
re-organisation of brands rather than service rationalisation, is that
ANL will no longer participate (obtaining slots from parent CMA
CGM) in the Europe trade. However, the ANL and CMA CGM sales
and agency teams are being integrated in Australia and in Europe,
so customer relationships will be maintained, the carriers say.
MULTI-SECTOR PRODUCTS
According to the UK-based Container Trade Statistics, which draws
its data from information furnished by select carriers, Australasian
exports to Europe grew by a strong 5.5% to 52,100 TEU in the first
quarter of 2019, while imports rose by 2.5% to 173,800 TEU. Freight
rates in both directions were, at best, subdued in the first quarter of
2019. (Q2 2019 figures had not been released at time of writing).
For calendar 2018, exports rose an impressive 8.3% over 2017,
to 199,300 TEU, according to CTS, while imports jumped 6.5%
to 735,900 TEU. Northbound and southbound rates lifted, but
patchily and insubstantially.
CTS figures come with the usual asterisk: “it should be noted
that CTS statistics may be substantially revised afterwards,
when new information and corrections are processed”, and the
underscore that carriers of this end of Australasian trades often
find poor correlation with the figures compiled in the northern
hemisphere.
CTS figures – and those collected by others, such as ports - do
not distinguish between containers carried by direct services and
those transiting via relay. But it is indisputable that the trade is
severely imbalanced: the stats above indicate southbound volumes
are more than three times northbound, and direct service carriers
say it’s more like five times for them.
Which all goes to explain an essential characteristic of the ANZ-
Some think it’s [IMO2020] the Y2K of
shipping, others think it will leave some
lines – especially the smaller ones –
hanging by a thread.
Europe-ANZ direct services, one which we repeat every year but
which bears re-iteration: these are not really direct services. They
are multi-sector products that, while enabling shippers to have the
goods remain on board for the entire journey (excepting changed
operational circumstances) the ships themselves are servicing
multiple markets.
Thus, the CMA CGM/Marfeet PAD/NASP service is really made
up of the following legs: southbound, NW Europe/UK-East Coast
North America (ie trans-Atlantic), NW Europe/UK-South Pacific,
NW Europe/UK-ANZ, ECNA-South Pacific, ECNA-ANZ, ANZ-
ECNA, ANZ-NW Europe/UK, ECNA-NW Europe UK. And you
could probably throw in links over Caribbean/Panama hubs to
Central and South American markets.
The current Suez services, CMA CGM/Hapag-Lloyd NEMO/
EAX and MSC Australia Express Service, can be similarly sectioned,
into Australia-SE Asia, Australia-Indian Sub-Continent, Australia-
Middle East, Australia-Mediterranean and Australia-NW Europe/
UK, with supplementary roles played by intermediate combinations
of which ISC-Med/Europe is the most important. Southbound,
routes follow a NW Europe/UK, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean
islands, Australia format – again with intermediate legs of varying
importance.
The poly-market nature of these services is, as carriers
regularly remind, essential to their viability (and continuation):
“We must have the double- and triple-dip,” one executive says.
“These services would not survive in either direction
without it.”
28 September 2019
thedcn.com.au