The disruption to container shipping traffic in the Red Sea is increasing and is expected to reduce the industry’s capacity between the Far East and Europe by up to 20 percent in the second quarter, shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S said on Monday.
Maersk and other shipping companies have diverted vessels around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope since December last year to avoid attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi militants in the Red Sea, with the longer voyage times pushing freight rates higher.
“The risk zone has expanded, and attacks are reaching further offshore,” Maersk said in an updated advisory to customers.
Photo: This Image has been supplied by a third party, Reuters
“This has forced our vessels to lengthen their journey further, resulting in additional time and costs to get your cargo to its destination for the time being,” it added.
By routing traffic away from the Suez Canal, Maersk estimated that the container industry’s capacity between the Far East and northern Europe and the Mediterranean would be cut by between 15 and 20 percent in the April-to-June quarter.
A company spokesperson said the situation in the Red Sea remained complex and continued to evolve.
The Danish group, viewed as a barometer of world trade, last week said that shipping disruptions were expected to last at least until the end of the year, although Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd AG sounded a slightly more optimistic note, saying it believes the crisis can be overcome before the end of this year.
France’s CMA CGM SA is still sending some vessels via the Red Sea escorted by French or other European navy frigates, but the majority of its ships are being rerouted around Africa, chief executive officer and chair Rodolphe Saade told daily newspaper Le Monde.
“The problem is that you have to call at ports that are not the final destination and to transship onto smaller vessels,” Saade told the newspaper in an interview published yesterday.
“Tangiers is saturated and alternatives need to be found — like [Spain’s] Algeciras or Valencia,” he added.
The knock-on effects of voyages around Africa included bottlenecks and so-called vessel bunching, where several ships arrive at port at the same time, as well as equipment and capacity shortages.
“We are doing what we can to boost reliability, including sailing faster and adding capacity,” Maersk said, adding that it had so far leased more than 125,000 additional containers.
“We have added capacity, where possible, in line with our customers’ needs,” the company said.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
Qualcomm Inc’s interest in pursuing an acquisition of Intel Corp has cooled, people familiar with the matter said, upending what would have likely been one of the largest technology deals of all time. The complexities associated with acquiring all of Intel has made a deal less attractive to Qualcomm, said some of the people, asking not to be identified discussing confidential matters. It is always possible Qualcomm looks at pieces of Intel instead or rekindles its interest later, they added. Representatives for Qualcomm and Intel declined to comment. Qualcomm made a preliminary approach to Intel on a possible takeover, Bloomberg News and other media
RSS