The continued decline in freight rates in the shipping market, as well as high rental costs, put new players entering the market during the market boom under tremendous operating pressure.
Australian liner company Focus Container Line has issued a bankruptcy statement and the company is in liquidation. At present, hundreds of containers are stranded in the company's yards in Brisbane and Melbourne, Australia, and at least 100 containers are stranded in the port of Auckland, New Zealand.
It is understood that Focus Container Line was established in March 2022 and has leased two containers-the multi-purpose ship "BBC Denmark" and the 1700TEU "San Giorgio", as well as more than 3000 containers.
just over three months ago, in November 2022, the shipping company just opened a route connecting China, New Zealand and Australia, with ports such as Ningbo, Auckland, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
this is not the first shipping company to go bankrupt recently. UK-based Allseas Global Project Logistics, went bankrupt in December 2022. The company entered the Asia-Europe route market in 2021 and announced the establishment of a shipping company in June 2022, but it closed down less than half a year after its establishment.
in addition, there are a number of shipping companies through the exit of some of the route market, contraction of positions, to deal with the market trough.
affected by factors such as the slowdown in global transport demand and rising inflation in Europe and the United States, spot freight rates on the world's major ocean-going trunk lines are gradually falling back to pre-epidemic levels.
The Global Container Freight Index (WCI) released by Dreluli shows that the WCI was $1954/FEU on February 16, down 2% from a week ago and 80% from the same period in 2022.
it's also been a while since WCI fell below $2000/FEU again, down 81% from its September 2021 peak of $10377/FEU, and down 26% from the average freight rate of $2693/FEU over the past decade.
The high freight dividend in the shipping market is no longer there, and those shipping companies that charter ships at the high point of the market and have no cost advantage or scale advantage will have an increasingly difficult time.
source: China Shipping Weekly