On the westbound India-Europe trade, contract prices from West India [Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT)/Nhava Sheva or Mundra Port] to Felixstowe/London Gateway (UK) or Rotterdam (the Netherlands) have now slipped to US$3,500/20-foot container and US$4,000/40-foot container, down from US$4,400 and $4,800, respectively, at the end of September.
For West India-Genoa (the West Mediterranean) cargo, carriers are accepting bookings at US$3,750/20-foot box and US$4,100/40-foot box, versus the September averages of US$4,900 and US$5,100.
Eastbound cargo rates have also further dropped noticeably – now hovering at US$1,400/20-foot container and US$1,500/40-foot container, versus US$1,525 and US$1,700 respectively a month earlier, for bookings from Felixstowe/Rotterdam to West India (Nhava Sheva/Mundra).
Short-term contract prices offered by major carriers for Indian cargo to the US East Coast (New York) have crashed from the September levels – now averaging at US$6,350 per 20-foot box, down from US$7,150, and US$8,350 per 40-foot box, down from US$9,050, and at US$4,500/20-foot container, down from US$7,050, and US$6,050/40-foot box, down from US$8,950, for loads to the US West Coast (Los Angeles).
For the West India-US Gulf Coast trade, rates have decreased to US$6,900 per 20-foot and US$9,050 per 40-foot container, compared with US$9,300 and US$11,650, respectively, in September.
On the return leg, average contract rates have not changed from the levels maintained by major operators last month – averaging at US$1,075/20-foot box and US$1,434/40-foot box from USEC; at US$2,484/20-foot box and US$3,193/40-foot box from USWC; and at US$1,770/20-foot and US$1,843/40-foot box from the Gulf Coast, into West India (Nhava Sheva/Mundra).
Intra-Asia trades out of India have also seen no rate changes this month from the September averages, after crashing steeply following the end of Covid lockdowns in and around Shanghai.
Average contract rates offered by major carriers to regular clients for bookings from West India (Nhava Sheva/JNPT or Mundra) to Shanghai/Tianjin are now at US$350 per 20-foot container and at US$450 per 40-foot box.
For Indian shipments to Hong Kong, average rates continue to hover at US$300/20-foot container and US$400/40-foot container, according to the CN analysis.
However, rates on West India-Singapore movement are now down to US$150/20-foot container and US$250/40-foot box, from US$250 and US$400 last month.
Contract rate levels on the return leg have fallen significantly month on month, with the slide averaging 20% for bookings from Shanghai/Yantian to West India, the analysis suggests.
“The shipping lines made all the efforts like repositioning empty containers into India and adding additional capacities to help the export trade,” said Sunil Vaswani, executive director of the Container Shipping Lines Association (CSLA).
He noted, “Besides, the congestion at global ports which had earlier blocked 14% of our fleet has reduced too, although 8% of our fleet still remains unavailable, as opposed to the normal 2 pct. The Russia-Ukraine war and he slowing down of the western economies has not helped the situation either.”
Vaswani went on to say, “The rates have indeed softened but they are neither expected to drop to the pre-pandemic levels nor remain as high as they were during the pandemic. We will, therefore, most likely see some levels in between.”
He further explained, “While the carriers have placed orders for new builds, let’s not forget that there is a significant amount of old tonnage too in the fleet that needs to be off-hired/scrapped. Besides, reorganisation of services/redeployment of tonnage is a continuous process which happens all the time. Meanwhile, let’s see how the orders are placed by the western buyers on the exporters in India next month onwards for the forthcoming spring season.”
Freight forwarders, however, believe that rate levels continue to remain high for cargo owners.
“Despite a sharp decline, the rates are still more than 150% greater than they were before the pandemic,” said Bharat Thanvi, co-founder of Freightwalla.
Thanvi also noted, “The plummeting costs were initially attributed to the monsoon’s effects at the start of the season, but they have continued ever since.”
He added, “Prices from Nhava Sheva to the Adriatic, the Baltic, and other regions have decreased by an average of US$1,000 just in the past 50 days. The decline in container demand in certain Chinese regions, the global economic downturn, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and ongoing port strikes throughout the world are a few of the major trends that contributed to the price volatility. Small and medium-sized exporters had anticipated lower rates, but due to declining consumer demand, current shipments have also fallen.”
