Excerpts from Business in Vancouver:
In its recent report on the international container shipping market, Drewry, a U.K.-based shipping consultancy, forecast an overall 7.3% drop in worldwide container port handling for 2020, which would be the sector’s worst performance since the 2009 global trade collapse.
Simon Heaney, Drewry’s senior manager of container research, said the company’s baseline forecast points to 2020’s second quarter, with its 16% decrease in container throughput, as the market’s bottom.
That precipitous drop generated by stalled trade and a spike in cancelled sailings by major container shipping lines is illustrated in second-quarter numbers from North America’s busiest container port complex, where the Port of Long Beach recently reported an 11.1% decrease in the number of 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) handled in June compared with the same month in 2019.
First-quarter container throughput at Port of Vancouver (PoV) terminals was down 12.8% overall, and most of that quarter preceded COVID-19 economic lockdowns. The PoV plans to release its first-half 2020 cargo data in September.