Shanghai International Shipping Institute

TRANSPACIFIC headhaul volumes so far this year are proving robust - especially for US east coast ports despite the uncertain long-term outlook for demand following the outbreak of trade war skirmishes between the US and China.

London-based ClipperMaritime's latest monthly Container Horizons report highlights a 16 per cent surge in container volumes from China to US east coast ports in a rolling 12-month period to February 2018. This compares to a growth of 5 per cent in volumes for US west coast ports in the same period.

The analyst said that although carryings were somewhat skewed by the late timing of the Chinese new year, with factory closures two weeks later this year, its full-year growth forecast for the US east coast "could reach 10 per cent" adding almost 600,000 TEU to the tradelane.

Taking full advantage of this cargo shift ocean carriers are in the process of upgrading the ships servicing the route from the 8,000 TEU vessels deployed after the opening of the widened Panama Canal in 2016, reports The Loadstar of UK.

Neil Dekker, ClipperMaritime's lead container consultant said: "The Ocean Alliance members have seen the light and have decoupled their Manhattan Bridge pendulum service and from this month will deploy 13,000 TEU ships on the new string."

The report said there are more newbuild vessels being received from the shipyards in Asia that are being deployed immediately onto the Asia to USEC trade.

ONE has deployed the 14,062 TEU NYK Wren to THE Alliance's Asia-USEC EC4 string via the Suez Canal and over the next few months a further three 13,870 TEU ONE newbuild ships will join the service.

However, ClipperMaritime points out that there is a looming threat to the migration of cargo to the east coast of America in the form of the renewal of the longshoremen contract scheduled for September, which could reverse the momentum of the cargo shift if negotiations prove problematic.