Hapag-Lloyd: Shipping is under pressure, some sailings may be canceled
No. 1 Panama Canal skip-the-line auction price soars
Skip-the-line auctions for Panama Canal transit time soared recently, with one owner bidding .4 million. The Panama Canal Authority's auction of spot crossings, which allows owners without reservations to skip the lines, has seen bids soar recently as the waterway is limited to 32 crossings per day.
During Avance Gas's second-quarter earnings call last week, CEO Øystein Kalleklev said winning bids rose rapidly in early August, surpassing million and then million, two weeks after a The owner paid .4 million for the winning bid.
For gas ship owners like Avance, if waiting times in the canal suddenly increase, a ship may not reach a port on the U.S. East Coast in time, and the owner will lose cargo destined for that ship.
NO.2 CMA CGM Completes New York Terminal Acquisition
CMA CGM has announced that it has completed the acquisition of two container terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey as the company grows its supply chain presence in the United States.
The company announced in December 2022 that it entered into an agreement to acquire the Bayonne and New York terminals from Canada's Global Container Terminals (GCT).
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but media reports suggest the deal could be worth about billion.
NO.3 DHL will increase the package rate of commercial customers
According to foreign media reports, DHL Parcel, the parcel division of German express group DHL, recently stated that from October 1, it will increase the parcel rate for commercial customers, citing the sharp rise in personnel costs and inflation leading to rising transportation costs.
The price increase involves the domestic and international DHL parcel transportation of corporate customers, and does not affect the domestic and international DHL Express business. Business customers will be notified separately of price adjustments. Prices for DHL parcel shipping for private customers remain unchanged.
NO.4 South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries labor negotiations deadlocked
Due to the poor progress of labor negotiations, South Korea's HD Hyundai Heavy Industries union launched the third partial strike. In the face of a serious shortage of labor in the shipbuilding industry, the South Korean shipbuilding industry is increasingly worried about the delay in the delivery of a large number of new ships caused by strikes.
On September 4, the HD Hyundai Heavy Industries union went on a partial strike for 2 hours that afternoon. This is the third partial strike after August 31 and September 1. The trade union warned that after the partial strike, if the negotiation of the collective wage agreement fails to make progress, the trade union will hold an indefinite general strike from September 6.
So far, among the three major shipbuilding companies in South Korea, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, the holding parent company of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, and Hyundai Mipo Shipbuilding, is the only company that has not reached a collective salary agreement with the labor union this year.
NO.5 Transatlantic shipping is under pressure, some voyages may be canceled
Freight rates on transatlantic shipping are being pressured by weak demand, meaning ship operators must focus on costs, the chief executive of Germany's Hapag-Lloyd said on Monday.
"Freight rates have definitely plummeted, which means we have to start looking at our costs, which have gone up," Rolf Habben Jansen, chief executive of Hapag-Lloyd, the world's fifth-largest container liner, said in a conference call with reporters. It cited rising wages, fuel prices, terminal and time charter costs, adding that cost concerns could mean some voyages were cancelled.
