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Transporting a 40-foot steel container of cargo by sea from Shanghai to Rotterdam now costs a record $10,522, a whopping 547% higher than the seasonal average o

Transporting a 40-foot steel container of cargo by sea from Shanghai to Rotterdam now costs a record $10,522, a whopping 547% higher than the seasonal average over the last five years.” Between Asia and North America, Bloomberg reports that “contract rates…are coming in around $2,500 to $3,000 for a 40-foot container—25% to 50% higher than a year ago…” - from January This seems like a non-story. Rates were insane due to Covid. Things are now normalizing. The rate is still incredibly expensive and should fall more.

conductr 4y ago
Would be nice if authors just compared things to 2019 or at least added that comparison to their report, this is how businesses look at their own numbers every since 2020.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  That would not fit their narrative though. Cherry picking data to fit your point is stats 101 for "journalists"
  - ProjectArcturis 4y ago
    What agenda do you think Costas Paris of the Wall Street Journal is pushing here?
    - addisonl 4y ago
      There doesn't need to be a hidden agenda—they simply want eye-catching headlines to drive clicks to their site.
      - ProjectArcturis 4y ago
        "Ocean shipping rates have plunged 60% this year" -- I guess that's somewhat more eye-catching than "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative", but not by much.
  - bigcat12345678 4y ago
    It's therefore very frustrating that Google search on factual data is entirely dominated by proprietary data sources like statistia (https://www.statista.com/ https://www.statista.com/), whereas the sources are mostly open for free access somewhere lacking the necessary treaks to make them available.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >Cherry picking data to fit your point is stats 101 for "journalists" What "point"? Shipping rates are down 60% in a year. That is a fact. I guess business reporting is too complicated for some people here.
  - kingofpandora 4y ago
    I didn't know shipping rates were falling, let alone falling this much. So this is news for me.
- blitzar 4y ago
  > Would be nice if authors just compared things to 2019 Why not 1985? Why a 3 year window and not a decade window? or Century? Or how it has changed over the last 12 parsecs? The Baltic Dry index is down 68% the last year to belew 1988 levels.
xfitm3 4y ago
I buy a lot of stuff from Europe for some of my weird hobbies and shipping rates have gone through the roof. I presume due to oil prices. I haven't charted this but anecdotally shipping is the same or more than what I'm buying
noobermin 4y ago
I really hate articles like this. It's like they're only written for the shippers and their margin and no one else. The country as a whole suffered under those huge rates. Why is "falling" to normal prices a bad thing?
- nl 4y ago
  I don't think anyone (except maybe logistics companies) think this is a bad thing. For almost all other readers of the WSJ shipping costs are just seen as a tax that makes their products more expensive.
  - manquer 4y ago
    Environmentalists or local manufacturers might also think dropping prices are bad ?. Local firms can compete better if cost of imports are higher . Similarly less goods will be imported if costs are high , therefore less emissions.
    - nl 4y ago
      Shipping is around 2.5% of global emissions, and notably the change in pricing didn't seem to substantially affect the volume[1] which is of course the thing that effects emissions. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/253987/international-seaborne-trade-carried-by-containers/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/253987/international-sea...
      - manquer 4y ago
        Depends on the type of emissions. Shipping uses bunker oil one of the most unclean fuels out there . Few ports now are providing power supply so they don’t have to burn bunker oil while berthed and can also shutdown power systems to do maintenance, but connectors are not standard etc. IMO has reduced the % of sulfur allowed recently and so on . Still it is a problem. Sulfur content is especially high and is estimated to cause 150,000 deaths/year and, 13% of SOx emissions is attributed to shipping[1] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02774-9#ref-link-section-d1456e583 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02774-9#ref-link-...
alx__ 4y ago
Oh, it's a non-story, but the headline is clickbait they couldn't pass up
- randomdata 4y ago
  What's clickbait-y about it? "Cost of ocean shipping doing exactly what we expected" doesn't compel me to click.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
    ...I think you just answered your own question, no?
    - chihuahua 4y ago
      But "plunging by 60% this year" is exactly what most informed people expected shipping rates to do. Therefore, the headline is not clickbait-y.
      - jjk166 4y ago
        Clickbait-y titles are those that use wording to make something mundane sound much more interesting or important. The fact that this is what most informed people expected shipping rates to do is exactly why it's clickbait-y. Similarly, most informed people expect an immense nuclear fireball to light up San Francisco tomorrow but titling your weather forecast that way would be clickbait.
        randomdata 4y ago
        > use wording to make something mundane sound much more interesting or important. Yes, but that doesn't apply here. Straight up matter of fact statements, like the one used in this title, is as mundane and uninteresting as is possible. The only thing that could garner less interest would be to permanently cut off all communication with others. The topic itself carries some interest, but the headline doesn't add to it. "This one weird trick allows you to save 60% on ocean freight. International shippers hate him." would have been clickbait-y.
Animats 4y ago
But still way above "normal", which is about $1000-$1500/TEU from China to Los Angeles.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Those rates have never been sustainable in the long run, back when you got around 2-3 k from Shanghai to Rotterdam. That was the time when Hanjin went under, for example. Great for shippers, bad for carriers. Then we had Covid, Ukraine and all that and rates are still far from normal. It seems to get better so.
tsol 4y ago
>This seems like a non-story. Rates were insane due to Covid. Things are now normalizing. Keyword: normalizING. Those inflated prices are continuing to result in supply shortages around the world. I still cannot acquire certain plastic items because they are ridiculously high at the moment. These shortages are also contributing to inflation. There are a lot of people who are closely watching this situation to it's resolution
- criley2 4y ago
  The inflated prices do not result in supply shortages. The increased/altered demand during covid, combined with decreased supply due things like zero covid china policy, caused a shortage in the market. Price, naturally, increased in this environment to find a strike point where demand would be satisfied with available supply.
  - chii 4y ago
    > The inflated prices do not result in supply shortages it's assumed that the shortage here meant supply at (the previously) low prices. Some people are making do without whatever that they originally intended, or found a substitution that was cheaper (and likely at a lower quality).
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Talk about market realism. By that definition if everyone else died of starvation because there was one container food left and elon musk bought it there's no famine.
    - criley2 4y ago
      Do you honestly believe that the 2020 Covid supply chain issues were caused by prices? That markets were 100% fine and one day someone was like, "nah fuckit, let's make shipping cost $30k instead of $3k, why not!" and bam, the supply issues started? Because if not, then you probably agree with me that increased/changed demand due to WFH combined with supply shortages (caused by China and others locking down), caused supply shortages, which naturally caused price to increase. > By that definition if everyone else died of starvation because there was one container food left and elon musk bought it there's no famine. This isn't even tangentially related to what I said. Like.... my brother in Christ... what. How did you even make this up? In your weird fake world where there is 1 food container, that's called a food shortage. A food shortage can lead to increased prices, which it would in your case. You're then saying that a rich person buys the one food. My sister in satan, there is still a shortage after Elon buys it. You see that, right? The shortage continues even though the limited supply was used. When people's food demand can't be met, it causes famine no matter where the strike price of food falls (if the food container cost just $0.01, but everyone was destitute, it would still be a famine!)
Tade0 4y ago
I see now how is it possible to have "Pears grown in Argentina, packed in Thailand". Even at current prices it adds perhaps 20 cents to the cost of a single, 250g package. Considering it was less than 4 cents previously it made economic sense to ship it for packaging in a country with cheaper labour.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > adds perhaps 20 cents to the cost of a single, 250g package. Can you share your math?
  - CapitalistCartr 4y ago
    Not OP, but it's pretty obvious. At $1-$2 (US) per cubic foot, 4-8 packages per cu. ft. is 20¢ apiece. A shipping container is about 2400 cu. ft., more for hi-cubes.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      You also have hard limits on the total weight of the container, which is why no one transports iron ore in containers.
      - mtillman 4y ago
        Pretty common to ship 20mt of metal in containers-we process $8B in raw commodities a year like this. Commodity traders don’t pay these prices to ship though, these are high value manufacturing (cpg, tech) prices. Commodity firms still ship enough volume to pay sub $2k a can.
        mistrial9 4y ago
        > ship 20mt of metal in containers containers vary a lot in their construction and materials, right? open-top railway car containers are not the same as common trans-continental containers, and refrigerated units are different again. All of those and more are in daily use in vast numbers, worldwide.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>This seems like a non-story. Rates were insane due to Covid. Things are now normalizing. The rate is still incredibly expensive and should fall more. Things normalizing are important. Many things are still out of whack. Inflation is still 9%. Demand is decreasing. Why is that a "non-story"? It seems to me it's interesting in both directions.
- wiremonger 4y ago
  Agree with your larger point, but prices actually were flat or slightly down in July vs June, which is deflation (they were up year over year, but that’s due to inflation in preceding months).
- blitzar 4y ago
  It is very interesting on the single dimension of shipping rates as well as the obvious implications for the supply chain, consumer demand, and what it means to the #1 economic number at the moment inflation. > Rates were insane due to Covid No they were insane due to the post covid boom, which also resulted in 9% inflation & write down the biggest number you can think of and we will pay it tech salaries.
wiremonger 4y ago
> This seems like a non-story. It’s still very much a story. A big question has been whether recent inflation would be transitory. Ocean shipping rates coming back down means that at least this one facet of inflation will end up being transitory.

conductr 4y ago

Would be nice if authors just compared things to 2019 or at least added that comparison to their report, this is how businesses look at their own numbers every since 2020.

phpisthebest 4y ago
That would not fit their narrative though. Cherry picking data to fit your point is stats 101 for "journalists"
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  What agenda do you think Costas Paris of the Wall Street Journal is pushing here?
  - addisonl 4y ago
    There doesn't need to be a hidden agenda—they simply want eye-catching headlines to drive clicks to their site.
    - ProjectArcturis 4y ago
      "Ocean shipping rates have plunged 60% this year" -- I guess that's somewhat more eye-catching than "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative", but not by much.
- bigcat12345678 4y ago
  It's therefore very frustrating that Google search on factual data is entirely dominated by proprietary data sources like statistia (https://www.statista.com/ https://www.statista.com/), whereas the sources are mostly open for free access somewhere lacking the necessary treaks to make them available.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >Cherry picking data to fit your point is stats 101 for "journalists" What "point"? Shipping rates are down 60% in a year. That is a fact. I guess business reporting is too complicated for some people here.
- kingofpandora 4y ago
  I didn't know shipping rates were falling, let alone falling this much. So this is news for me.
blitzar 4y ago
> Would be nice if authors just compared things to 2019 Why not 1985? Why a 3 year window and not a decade window? or Century? Or how it has changed over the last 12 parsecs? The Baltic Dry index is down 68% the last year to belew 1988 levels.

xfitm3 4y ago

I buy a lot of stuff from Europe for some of my weird hobbies and shipping rates have gone through the roof. I presume due to oil prices. I haven't charted this but anecdotally shipping is the same or more than what I'm buying

noobermin 4y ago

I really hate articles like this. It's like they're only written for the shippers and their margin and no one else. The country as a whole suffered under those huge rates. Why is "falling" to normal prices a bad thing?

nl 4y ago
I don't think anyone (except maybe logistics companies) think this is a bad thing. For almost all other readers of the WSJ shipping costs are just seen as a tax that makes their products more expensive.
- manquer 4y ago
  Environmentalists or local manufacturers might also think dropping prices are bad ?. Local firms can compete better if cost of imports are higher . Similarly less goods will be imported if costs are high , therefore less emissions.
  - nl 4y ago
    Shipping is around 2.5% of global emissions, and notably the change in pricing didn't seem to substantially affect the volume[1] which is of course the thing that effects emissions. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/253987/international-seaborne-trade-carried-by-containers/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/253987/international-sea...
    - manquer 4y ago
      Depends on the type of emissions. Shipping uses bunker oil one of the most unclean fuels out there . Few ports now are providing power supply so they don’t have to burn bunker oil while berthed and can also shutdown power systems to do maintenance, but connectors are not standard etc. IMO has reduced the % of sulfur allowed recently and so on . Still it is a problem. Sulfur content is especially high and is estimated to cause 150,000 deaths/year and, 13% of SOx emissions is attributed to shipping[1] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02774-9#ref-link-section-d1456e583 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02774-9#ref-link-...

alx__ 4y ago

Oh, it's a non-story, but the headline is clickbait they couldn't pass up

randomdata 4y ago
What's clickbait-y about it? "Cost of ocean shipping doing exactly what we expected" doesn't compel me to click.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  ...I think you just answered your own question, no?
  - chihuahua 4y ago
    But "plunging by 60% this year" is exactly what most informed people expected shipping rates to do. Therefore, the headline is not clickbait-y.
    - jjk166 4y ago
      Clickbait-y titles are those that use wording to make something mundane sound much more interesting or important. The fact that this is what most informed people expected shipping rates to do is exactly why it's clickbait-y. Similarly, most informed people expect an immense nuclear fireball to light up San Francisco tomorrow but titling your weather forecast that way would be clickbait.
      - randomdata 4y ago
        > use wording to make something mundane sound much more interesting or important. Yes, but that doesn't apply here. Straight up matter of fact statements, like the one used in this title, is as mundane and uninteresting as is possible. The only thing that could garner less interest would be to permanently cut off all communication with others. The topic itself carries some interest, but the headline doesn't add to it. "This one weird trick allows you to save 60% on ocean freight. International shippers hate him." would have been clickbait-y.

Animats 4y ago

But still way above "normal", which is about $1000-$1500/TEU from China to Los Angeles.

hef19898 4y ago
Those rates have never been sustainable in the long run, back when you got around 2-3 k from Shanghai to Rotterdam. That was the time when Hanjin went under, for example. Great for shippers, bad for carriers. Then we had Covid, Ukraine and all that and rates are still far from normal. It seems to get better so.

tsol 4y ago

>This seems like a non-story. Rates were insane due to Covid. Things are now normalizing. Keyword: normalizING. Those inflated prices are continuing to result in supply shortages around the world. I still cannot acquire certain plastic items because they are ridiculously high at the moment. These shortages are also contributing to inflation. There are a lot of people who are closely watching this situation to it's resolution

criley2 4y ago
The inflated prices do not result in supply shortages. The increased/altered demand during covid, combined with decreased supply due things like zero covid china policy, caused a shortage in the market. Price, naturally, increased in this environment to find a strike point where demand would be satisfied with available supply.
- chii 4y ago
  > The inflated prices do not result in supply shortages it's assumed that the shortage here meant supply at (the previously) low prices. Some people are making do without whatever that they originally intended, or found a substitution that was cheaper (and likely at a lower quality).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Talk about market realism. By that definition if everyone else died of starvation because there was one container food left and elon musk bought it there's no famine.
  - criley2 4y ago
    Do you honestly believe that the 2020 Covid supply chain issues were caused by prices? That markets were 100% fine and one day someone was like, "nah fuckit, let's make shipping cost $30k instead of $3k, why not!" and bam, the supply issues started? Because if not, then you probably agree with me that increased/changed demand due to WFH combined with supply shortages (caused by China and others locking down), caused supply shortages, which naturally caused price to increase. > By that definition if everyone else died of starvation because there was one container food left and elon musk bought it there's no famine. This isn't even tangentially related to what I said. Like.... my brother in Christ... what. How did you even make this up? In your weird fake world where there is 1 food container, that's called a food shortage. A food shortage can lead to increased prices, which it would in your case. You're then saying that a rich person buys the one food. My sister in satan, there is still a shortage after Elon buys it. You see that, right? The shortage continues even though the limited supply was used. When people's food demand can't be met, it causes famine no matter where the strike price of food falls (if the food container cost just $0.01, but everyone was destitute, it would still be a famine!)

Tade0 4y ago

I see now how is it possible to have "Pears grown in Argentina, packed in Thailand". Even at current prices it adds perhaps 20 cents to the cost of a single, 250g package. Considering it was less than 4 cents previously it made economic sense to ship it for packaging in a country with cheaper labour.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> adds perhaps 20 cents to the cost of a single, 250g package. Can you share your math?
- CapitalistCartr 4y ago
  Not OP, but it's pretty obvious. At $1-$2 (US) per cubic foot, 4-8 packages per cu. ft. is 20¢ apiece. A shipping container is about 2400 cu. ft., more for hi-cubes.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    You also have hard limits on the total weight of the container, which is why no one transports iron ore in containers.
    - mtillman 4y ago
      Pretty common to ship 20mt of metal in containers-we process $8B in raw commodities a year like this. Commodity traders don’t pay these prices to ship though, these are high value manufacturing (cpg, tech) prices. Commodity firms still ship enough volume to pay sub $2k a can.
      - mistrial9 4y ago
        > ship 20mt of metal in containers containers vary a lot in their construction and materials, right? open-top railway car containers are not the same as common trans-continental containers, and refrigerated units are different again. All of those and more are in daily use in vast numbers, worldwide.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>This seems like a non-story. Rates were insane due to Covid. Things are now normalizing. The rate is still incredibly expensive and should fall more. Things normalizing are important. Many things are still out of whack. Inflation is still 9%. Demand is decreasing. Why is that a "non-story"? It seems to me it's interesting in both directions.

wiremonger 4y ago
Agree with your larger point, but prices actually were flat or slightly down in July vs June, which is deflation (they were up year over year, but that’s due to inflation in preceding months).
blitzar 4y ago
It is very interesting on the single dimension of shipping rates as well as the obvious implications for the supply chain, consumer demand, and what it means to the #1 economic number at the moment inflation. > Rates were insane due to Covid No they were insane due to the post covid boom, which also resulted in 9% inflation & write down the biggest number you can think of and we will pay it tech salaries.

wiremonger 4y ago

> This seems like a non-story. It’s still very much a story. A big question has been whether recent inflation would be transitory. Ocean shipping rates coming back down means that at least this one facet of inflation will end up being transitory.