The Loadstar

By Gavin van Marle (The Loadstar) – The spectre of blank sailings may be about to return to haunt shippers and forwarders on the Asia-Europe trades, as

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Four-year-plus charter deals are becoming the norm as shipowners ratchet up the pressure on liner companies. As their

By Gavin van Marle (The Loadstar) – The number of container rollovers at major box ports continued to climb last month, affecting some 39% of all

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – A new survey by VesselsValue has found a “significant increase” in the average speed of containerships. The

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Shippers from Asia to Europe saw a further spike in container spot rates this week, particularly for Mediterranean

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Shippers must brace themselves for at least two more years of elevated freight rates and tight supply, according to

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Shippers are bracing for a further broadside of rate increases in June across multiple trades, as ocean carriers beef

By Gavin van Marle (The Loadstar) – The US east coast is set for another bruising encounter between a dockworker union, shipping line and

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Container freight indices are on the rise again, but even at their highly elevated levels they mask the true cost of

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Carriers are “scraping the bottom of the barrel” for available tonnage, as the percentage of the global

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – The knock-on effects of the blockage of the Suez Canal is likely to impact North Europe supply chains until June.

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – After cumulative ocean carrier profits exceeded some $9bn for the final quarter of 2020, the returns for the liner

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – There are reports of “sharp increases” in Asia-Europe container spot rates this week, as the fallout from the

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Ocean carriers enjoyed their best quarter in container shipping history in the final three months of 2020, but

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – The main container ports in North Europe were eerily quiet at the weekend, due to the almost week-long blockage of the

By Gavin van Marle (The Loadstar) – As the investigation into the grounding of the Ever Given in the Suez Canal begins, the

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Ocean carriers have been warned not to take advantage of the capacity crunch resulting from the Suez blockage to

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Container spot rates from Asia to Europe look set to surge again, as carriers are obliged to blank sailings in

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Israeli ocean carrier Zim has posted its first annual profit for three years – and the biggest in its 75-year

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – Container spot rates from Asia may have eased slightly from their record highs, post-Chinese new year, but rates for