The latter includes ship charters by freight forwarders as well as extra loaders used by liners. The bigger picture involves the mix between liner services on scheduled rotations and cargo moves that are effectively unscheduled. “If you compare all these with the mega-alliances, the overall capacity is peanuts,” said Verberckmoes. You would clearly have to have a partner such as a freight forwarder.”Īnd while the Home Depot news highlights the severity of the current market tightness, such non-liner cargo moves remain minimal. If you had some shippers organizing their own service - and I don’t think that’s likely - you’d have all the small ships coming into ports between the big ships, and that would become a mess.”Īccording to Sundboell, “If you’re a Home Depot, you’ve never done this. “You can charter a ship as a shipper, but you need to have a contract with a terminal. “It is normally going through a forwarder or an NVOCC,” said Verberckmoes. “If a forwarder is chartering a multipurpose ship, the slot costs of this transport may be affordable when you look at how high spot rates are at the moment, but in the longer term, the spot rates will come down and running an 800-TEU ship yourself when you have professional shipowners running 20,000-TEU ships doesn’t make sense,” said Verberckmoes.Ī shipper would also almost certainly need a freight-forwarding partner to circumvent ocean carriers. Recent events do not imply that importers will seek to cut out the liner middlemen as a long-term strategy. ![]() And we have China United Lines, which began with sailings backed by an organization of supermarkets in Europe that had a problem getting containers, and that service is now fortnightly.” Just temporary, not long term “There was also a freight forwarder in the UK that chartered three ships from the Far East to Liverpool. “During the last couple of months, we have seen freight forwarders like Panalpina and DSV fixing small multipurpose ships that are built to carry heavy lift but they can take maybe 800-900 TEU of containers,” noted Verberckmoes. ![]() Already, multiple ships have been chartered this year by freight forwarders in the Asia-Europe trade. An extra loader is a container ship that is not a part of a regular service.Ī source in the container-ship-lessor space confirmed that more inquiries are now coming from freight forwarders. American Shipper has been told by a source that Amazon filled the majority of slots on several extra loaders during last holiday season. Amazon (NYSE: AMZN) is a licensed non-vessel-operating common carrier (NVOCC). The idea of going around ocean carriers and employing a ship for the benefit of specific importers is not new. Let’s try to fix something ourselves now because we can’t rely on the big carriers,’” he told American Shipper, adding, “To me, it’s a temporary thing for the Christmas season.” Going around the liners “Right now, it’s really about, ‘OK, we need these goods urgently. I think these are all emergency ad-hoc sailings to get urgent cargo delivered,” he said of the Home Depot news and recent ship charters by European freight forwarders. You’re just looking very, very short term at getting the boxes you need into your warehouses.”Īccording to Stefan Verberckmoes, shipping analyst and Europe editor at Alphaliner, “If the shipper has urgent cargo and the carrier doesn’t have a ship, that’s when the shipper looks for ad-hoc solutions. “I cannot imagine it is a larger ship, because there aren’t any available, so you’re not looking to compete on slot costs. “This strikes me as an extreme scenario,” said Simon Sundboell, founder of maritime intelligence platform eeSea. Home Depot’s decision confirms that costly workarounds are now on the table. ![]() However, carriers have been unable to fully meet contract commitments due to extreme congestion, and simultaneously, retail inventory-to-sales ratios remain historically low. In an article published Sunday, CNBC interviewed Home Depot President Ted Decker, who said that the ship will exclusively carry Home Depot cargo, will begin service in July, and was employed because consumer demand caught Home Depot by surprise.Ī Home Depot spokesperson confirmed the CNBC report but declined to offer additional details to American Shipper, such as the ship’s name, the duration of its use and whether Home Depot is working with a freight forwarder intermediary.Ī company the size of Home Depot has high-volume long-term contracts with ocean carriers at lower rates than smaller shippers. The move underscores just how tight trans-Pacific capacity has become and how worried retailers are about getting goods on shelves at any cost. One of America’s largest retailers, Home Depot (NYSE: HD), has just reserved a ship for its sole use.
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