运价高峰之痛

The agony of the ‘peak’

受益货主和无船承运支付的运价差异拉大，后者的运价相较去年年底已上涨67％。

Freight rate spread widens between beneficial cargo owners and NVOs, with latter’s rates up 67 percent since year-end. Having worked for more than 22 years in the shipping industry, much of the time with ocean carriers, Stephen Aldridge understands that freight rates charged to cargo consolidators will rise and fall with market conditions. However, Aldridge, president of the non-vessel-operating common carrier Encompass Global Logistics, is deeply concerned by today’s market in which NVOs in some cases are paying $600 per 40- foot container more than retailers and direct importers on shipments from Asia to the U.S. According to the Drewry Container Rate Benchmark published each week in The Journal of Commerce, the spot rate charged to NVOs for shipping a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles has been at $2,337 per FEU for six consecutive weeks. That’s up 67 percent from the $1,400 spot rate charged last December. Retailers and other direct shippers, also known as beneficial cargo owners, recently signed their annual service contracts with carriers in the eastbound Pacific. The freight rates are confidential, but it is believed that BCOs are paying$1,650 to $2,000 per FEU. The largest carriers in the eastbound Pacific recently announced their intention to levy a peak-season surcharge of $600 per FEU, effective June 10. While the prospects of carriers enforcing such a large surcharge are questionable, any increase would send the spread between NVO rates and BCO rates even higher — many BCOs have clauses in their contracts prohibiting peak-season surcharges, so the burden would fall largely on intermediaries.