While freight rates have been dropping consistently on most trades, they have remained elevated on the Transatlantic due to capacity issues.

In a new report, Sea Intelligence said this is about to change, as carriers inject serious amounts of capacity into the trade lane.

"From North Europe, capacity growth is scheduled to begin spiking from mid-December 2022, reaching a temporary apex at the end of the month, with capacity growth at 43% year-on-year," said Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence, adding that once we head into February, the current deployment indicates a capacity growth of 48%.

The Sea Intelligence report noted that compared to 2019 (pre-pandemic), from mid-December 2022, the operating capacity on North Europe-North America East Coast will shift from roughly the same level as in 2019 to 20% higher.

"As we get into mid-February 2023, this is poised to jump even further to 30%. However, this is not even the largest increase, as capacity from the Mediterranean will grow at an average of 25% over 2019 in January-February 2023," Murphy explained, adding that this is "at odds"

"This is at odds with demand growth (or lack thereof ), as demand was down -3.4% Y/Y in Aug-Oct 2022, certainly not warranting the level of capacity injection currently planned," Murphy added.

The Sea Intelligence chief noted that if vessel utilization is calculated by matching capacity and demand on the head-haul, (assuming that demand continues to decline at the same -3.4% rate), and then matched against the spot rates, the result will be the data shown in figure 1.

Self Photos / Files - 549c44ed5ae8452686989405b2b5ecec.png

Source: Sea-Intelligence

"Here we can clearly see that there is a link between spot rates and vessel utilization, but what is also clear is that there is a time lag of several months," Murphy said.

"Given this time lag, and based on the current drop in utilisation, spot rates on the Transatlantic are primed to collapse in the coming months," he added.