by Tyler Durden
By Greg Miller of Freight Waves,
Spot ocean container rates are up triple digits year on year, ergo they must be near their peak. They’re so high they don’t have much more room to run. So goes a common belief in the container market, despite the fact that this premise has already been proven wrong, and that container rates could theoretically have a lot more room to run if the upper limit is defined the same way it is in non-containerized shipping.
One leading freight-forwarder executive told American Shipper in August 2020 after the initial spike, “I do not think there is room for growth beyond $4,000 [per forty-foot equivalent unit or FEU].” Nine months later, many all-in trans-Pacific rates including premium charges are more than double that — and rising sustainably. Importers commonly pay $8,000-$10,000 per FEU or more, including extra charges, sometimes a lot more.