According to Sand, BIMCO does not see any easing in the supply-demand crunch until the latter half of next year.
When exactly the 12 months unwinding period predicted by BIMCO will start is unclear.
“We already for a couple of months have said that 12 months from now we may see somewhat of a normalised market,” Sand said. “I think that 12 months is still ahead of us to the extent that what we have seen in those previous two months has been still an escalation of those supply chain dynamics.
“That’s not working towards an easing of the crunches, it has simply made the supply chain crunches tougher to deal with, and that to us explains the most recent hike in freight rates.
“For the shippers, it will still be quite costly, at least compared to pre-pandemic levels to ship goods around the world, but for the liner shipping companies, it’s certainly windfall profits.”
According to Sand, new-build ship orders are coming in at record levels which could see capacity increase 5-6% in 2023.
“We have seen a record-high number of ships being ordered, and they will be fed into the global network two years from now predominantly, so we could see 2022 as being lower fleet growth,” he told Stockhead.
“But then we see 2023 arriving at a fleet growth of around 5-6%, and that is eventually turning around the crisis right now with the shortage of capacity.
“Eventually, that will, of course, weigh down on freight rates … when shipping capacity again exceeds demand by 2023.”
Source: Stock Head