A global shipping container shortage

The explosion in intra-Asian trade has led to a global shipping container shortage within the industry.

Just a few months ago, very few people thought that possible. In fact, many shipping container and leasing companies stopped sourcing and producing containers altogether during the 2008-09 slump. So this rebound has caught the major shipping lines by surprise.

To top off the resulting shortage, many Chinese container factories have gone on strike. And most shipping companies have purposely slowed business down to save fuel and money. Summing it up, Lars Reno Jakobsen, the head of Network and Product for Maersk Line, had this to say: “We already see a tight equipment situation. We expect an even more pronounced and serious shortage of containers in the coming months as we enter peak season.”

The peak season for the container shipping industry runs from June through October. And exporters have already issued warnings and requests, urging customers to quickly return containers. Maersk is even using some of its super-fast ships to rush empty boxes back to Asian ports. Not too long ago, those same ships remained idle.

Research company Tufton Oceanic believes the industry needs up to 6 million shipping containers to restore it to the conventional 2.2 containers per available slot. To put that into perspective, that’s equivalent to two years’ worth of production. (source: dailymarkets)

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