According to the latest reports, due to multiple impacts such as the epidemic, the continuing upward sea freight rate has recently regained a frantic increase. Among them, the spot price of 40-foot standard containers from China to the United States saw year-on-year rises of more than 500%, the price hit a record high of US$20,000. At present, the sea freight between China and Europe is fixed at nearly US$14,000.
The Baltic Shipping Price Index (FBDI) shows that the freight rate for the Asia-North America West route is US$18,345/FEU, which is about six times that of a year ago; while the freight rate from Asia to the east coast of North America has quadrupled to US$19,620/FEU. The rate from Asia to Northern Europe has risen by 4% since last week, which is more than 8 times higher than a year ago and 2.5 times higher than at the beginning of the year.
There are signs that due to the delta mutant strain raging around the world, the epidemic has rebounded in many countries, which has led to a shortage of loading and unloading personnel in major foreign ports, which has generally slowed container turnaround time, The longer container clearance time caused a low recovery rate. On August 11, a positive case of COVID-19 was found at the terminal of Ningbo Zhoushan Port, the world's largest port, which triggered the emergency closure and suspension of operations in the Meishan Port area that day, which made the already tight international capacity worse.
The high shipping costs inevitably have a huge impact on the export of power products. Taking the 11kv pin insulator as an example, the value of a 20-foot cabinet is about 21,000 US dollars. If shipped to the United States, the transportation cost is basically equal to the value of the goods, which was unimaginable in the past. Even for high-voltage insulators, such as 66kv polymer line post insulator, the value of a container is only about 110,000 U.S. dollars, and the shipping cost to the United States is 20,000 U.S. dollars. Coupled with the impact of COVID-19, many power projects have been postponed or postponed to purchase, and many power manufacturing companies are facing difficulties that have never been seen in history.