European Shipping Outlook: Where Is the Market Heading?

The European container shipping market late this year and early 2020 faces challenges that will affect carrier profitability and have potentially serious consequences for shippers. After increasing 4.5 percent in 2017, container volumes grew just 1.4 percent in 2018, and although IHS Markit expects European imports from Asia to increase by 4.2 percent this year, economic headwinds could make it difficult to get there. Economic growth is slowing in the EU’s largest economies, and concern is growing about a possible recession in Germany, the post-Brexit UK, and France. Considering the Asian inbound trade accounts for half of all European imports, slowing growth in volumes from Asia isn’t good news for container shipping. While demand slows, container shipping capacity is heading the other way. After factoring in the mega-ship deliveries coming this year, Sea-Intelligence Consulting estimates that capacity on the Asia-Europe trades will increase by a net 10 percent. The level of demand will be crucial in filling these vessels and allowing carriers to lift and sustain freight rates at profitable levels, something they have struggled to do. Instead, carriers have tried to manage their capacity as best they can, and with an ongoing supply-demand imbalance, frustrated shippers will need to get accustomed to more blanked sailings, slower steaming, adjusted port calls, and more idled vessels. This will further challenge shippers already dealing with on-time performance that has ranged from 35 to 70 percent in the major east-west trades.

This webcast, led by JOC Senior Europe Editor Greg Knowler and held in the wake of the 2019 Container Trade Europe Conference, will analyze the outlook for the European container shipping market as 2019 winds down.

Moderator:

Greg Knowler, Senior Editor, Europe, JOC, Maritime & Trade, IHS Markit

Speaker(s):

Rahul Kapoor, Vice President and Head of Research & Analytics, Maritime & Trade, IHS Markit

Andrew Gillespie, Director, Global Logistics, Ansell

Additional Details to follow.
Interested in sponsoring this webcast? For more information, please visit https://subscribe.joc.com/advertising/
Register Now