Everyone is complaining about the shipping rates, delayed deliveries and lack of shipping containers around the world. Prices have gone through the roof, will the freight rates will ever go back or below pre-pandemic levels? A question that not even the best in the industry, cannot answer at the moment.
We’re going through peak season for the holidays, container rates continue to go up and score new records, over the previous historical rates. The demand volume, port congestions and backlog orders are making the globalization even harder every day. How long will this crisis last? The course is uncertain and it can be easily influenced by a wide range of factors that are not strictly in the shipping industry all the time.
Ports officials are all getting to one conclusion, freight rates will not move to a substantial decrease before 3rd quarter of 2022, and even the market will see a correction will be fast and sharp, but it will not fall below or anywhere near the post pandemic rates, which will make the price of the shipping containers to drop but not significantly and never to the prices we had before 2019-2020.
New ships are being build, they have to be green and environmental friendly so they keep carbon taxation low, this will be reflected also in shipping price, so freight companies, even if they lower costs will have to include the taxes back into their rates so no significant decrease there.
Overall, we think that the shipping container industry will be at it’s peak, and rates will remain elevated over the first half of 2022, and only after 2023 onwards we can talk about an average freight costs and shipping container price, lower but in the same time above pre-pandemic levels, we will never go back, this will be the new NEW, and we just have to wait and see if we won’t have any climatic changes surprises that will take us off-guard and pushes us into a new era.
