Alliances weathering the storm differently
Deep-sea carriers have currently blanked 435 sailings. The Copenhagen-headquartered maritime consultancy Sea-Intelligence said in a recent bulletin that these cancelations stand for a decline in demand of 7 million t in 2020. The blanking measure, however, protects the prices.
Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, commented: "Looking back over the past six weeks, the CCFI contract rate index was 11% higher than at the same period last year – despite the drop in both demand and oil prices."
Nevertheless, the alliances chose different strategies to cope with the crises. While 2M and THE Alliance rolled out their blank sailings for the whole of the Q2, the Ocean Alliance chose a shorter period into the future. Murphy added: "Taking the transpacific as an example, the three alliances each blanked some 17-24% in weeks 15-21. However for weeks 22-27 2M and THE Alliance have blanked 19-21%, whereas Ocean Alliance at this point has only blanked 6%." More news about this matter can be expected from Ocean Alliance in Q2. (mw)