Preliminary Data Suggests 10% YoY Container Traffic Growth in 2017's Q1: Drewry

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Monday May 15, 2017

Drewry Shipping Consultants Limited (Drewry), in its latest Container Insight Weekly, said provisional trade lane data from Container Trades Statistics (CTS) suggests world container ship traffic grew by 10 percent year-on-year in 2017's Q1 - largely on the back of unexpectedly strong demand growth, particularly in the Greater China region.

"There is still some cross-checking to be done, but it does seem that demand growth was much stronger in 1Q17 than we previously anticipated and will necessitate an upgrade to our full-year forecast," said Drewry.

Intra-regional trade credited as the largest driver of growth, with volumes suggested to have increased by 17 percent, compared to 7 percent in the deep-sea traffic segment.

The CTS data confirms a "large tilt" in Chinese imports, with Drewry's traffic sample of trading regions jumping by 28 percent, and exports to those regions increasing by 11 percent.

"The rebound in container volumes appears to be broad-based it is clear from its well above-average growth that China is very much at the epicentre," explained Drewry.

The consultancy says that almost half of the additional 2.6 million TEU handled in the Greater China region in 2017's Q1 can be attributed to trade with neighbouring Intra-Asia partners, while domestic cabotage and trade with North America each provided a further two-tenths of the additional volume.

Drewry says that, among the six carriers that operate about approximately 30 percent of the world's containership fleet, average volume growth reached 10 percent in in the first quarter of the year.

"It's fair to say that the few, if any, saw this extreme growth coming. If confirmed, a quarterly rate of 10 percent for loaded container traffic would far exceed anything seen since 2010 - when demand rebounded sharply following the crash of 2009," said Drewry.

"Over the past two years 2015-16 the average quarterly rate was a mere 2.3 percent despite some uplift from 2Q16 onwards."

Noting that the first quarter is traditionally the slowest quarter in the year for box ship demand, Drewry says the demand for the remainder of 2017 is still unpredictable.

"Some shippers may have wanted to move goods ahead of new and higher contract terms and anticipated spot rate increases," suggested Drewry, noting that the there is "no identifiable trend shift" to confirm or deny such a theory.

Last week, Ship & Bunker reported that new information issued by Moody's Japan K.K. (Moody's) suggested that, with signs of recovery in both the dry bulk and container shipping segments, the outlook for the global shipping industry is stable.