Shipping advisory company Drewry says it anticipates 2024 to be the second highest year on record for dry freight container manufacturing.
In a market opinion piece on its website, the company adds that production in Q2 2024 also reached a record high, while July’s output of dry freight and reefer containers exceeded 850,000 teu from factories in China.
Moreover, Drewry notes that manufacturers have reported order books being full until the middle of October.
“The provision for containers in numbers and at locations where they are required has become a challenge because of the strong exports from Asia, congestion at large container transhipment hubs and declining container productivity due to the extended voyage caused by the Red Sea crisis,” says the company, highlighting the extent of container shortages at some ports.
Drewry states that the problem is particularly acute among 40ft high-cube containers as more boxes are required to transport the same volume of cargo.
Exemplifying the point, Drewry highlights figures showing that between January and the end of July this year, around 1.4 million units were delivered compared to 125,000 in the same period in 2023.
“Production of reefer boxes also increased in the second quarter, but the numbers were still in the range we have seen over the last several quarters. The tonnage of reefer cargo on routes which would normally include the Red Sea fell by more than 5% YoY in 2023, well before the start of the recent supply chain issues. A similar trend was seen in the wider market with a 0.7% YoY decrease in global seaborne reefer trade, following the 1.5% YoY decline in 2022 and signalling the relative weakness of the sector,” concludes the well-known shipping advisory firm.
Photo: Gazouya-japan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons