Statistical interval: October 29th-November 1st
The same crisis in the Middle East is tearing the shipping industry into two directions: oil tankers have entered a super cycle driven by the supply side, while container ships are bleeding out on the demand side. This week, LR2 locked in a price of US$181,000/day in the fourth quarter (72.3 thousand in the third quarter); during the same period, Drewry WCI ended its two-week streak of gains, falling back 3%, with the trans-Pacific leading the decline. This is not a question of "good or bad shipping markets". It is a question of the allocation of risk premiums - whose ship must pass through risky waters, who collects the money; whose goods are tied to consumer demand, who pays. All seemingly scattered events this week (Maersk’s US$5.76 billion ship order, Hengli’s ranking first in the world, the Los Angeles strike extension, 301 port fees pending), are all linked to the same chain: Shipping capacity is concentrating on Chinese shipyards and very large dual-fuel ships, while demand is being squeezed by both geopolitical risks and high freight rates.
Choose one from Hudong-Zhonghua and Hengli Heavy Industry, and finally decide on Hudong-Zhonghua, 12+12 dual-fuel LNG ships, each ship costs about 240 million US dollars, and will be delivered from the end of 2029; together with the 34 ships of 18,600TEU ordered during the year, Maersk has ordered 58 dual-fuel tank ships this year.
what does it mean: Maersk bets its main shipping capacity in the next ten years on 24,000TEU + LNG, which is equivalent to admitting that "scale + green fuel" is the only moat. But it should be noted that they will not be delivered until the end of 2029 - these ships are betting on the carbon cost around 2030, not the current freight rate. It is a capacity lock for Hudong-Zhonghua, and it loses the biggest endorsement for Hengli.
The order for 52 ultra-large container ships (three-tier 19,000/22,000/24,000TEU) exceeds US$11 billion. It has previously undertaken 30 24,000TEU-class ships from Mediterranean Shipping; however, the shipyard has no record of actual ship delivery of 24,000TEU so far.
what does it mean: This is the most questionable item this week. The ranking is based on the order volume, not the delivery record. The shipowner bets the order to a shipyard that has "never delivered this ship type". In essence, it is exchanging the order for production capacity and price - whether this bet can be realized will only be answered when the first batch of real ships are launched in 2028. If there are delays or quality problems, the global 24,000TEU capacity supply curve will shift to the right as a whole.
On October 29, an oil tanker was approached by a small boat and an explosive device was installed on the side, causing a fire in the engine room; on November 1, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards said that four oil tankers caught fire and exploded, and one of them hit a mine. US data: Of at least 28 open source reports in October, a quarter of the hits were in the engine room - specifically causing the ship to lose power.
what does it mean: The purpose of the attack has changed from "making news" to "removing shipping capacity". Hitting the engine room is more severe than hitting the hull. It takes several months to repair a main engine, which is equivalent to taking the ship away from the market. This directly explains why the tanker rental rate can reach 180,000 US dollars per day - it is not that there is more cargo, but there are fewer ships. This is a supply shock, not a demand boom, and the sustainability of the two is completely different.
The PMA and ILWU Chapter 26 will postpone the strike originally scheduled for November 1 to 17:00 on November 4 (Pacific time), and federal mediation will intervene. The dispute only involves about 250 terminal safety personnel, but their positions cover about 85% of the cargo volume of the Port of Long Beach and about 33% of the Port of Los Angeles.
what does it mean: The job of 250 people can paralyze two major ports in the western United States, which exposes the chain fragility of terminal operations-other union members will not cross the picket line. If there is a strike, trans-Pacific freight rates will rebound sharply on the basis of the already falling price, and NRF has predicted that U.S. seaborne imports will fall by 11% month-on-month in November, which is equivalent to a decline in demand combined with supply disruptions. The first to be injured is the cargo owner.
On October 30, Grimaldi submitted opinions to USTR regarding USTR 301 port fees, supporting the extension of the moratorium to January 9, 2027, and further requesting a permanent exemption from fees for foreign-built car carriers. The company disclosed: In the past three years, it has carried nearly 985 thousand tons of U.S. exports and 1.31 million tons of imports on U.S. routes, of which 74.7% of the imported cargo volume belongs to U.S. auto companies. The total cargo volume related to U.S. import/export accounts for 86% of the total cargo volume on its U.S. routes.
what does it mean: This is the only hard node this week that "expires in 8 days." Chinese shipyards have won 76% of global orders (Clarkson data for September), and the United States has countered with port fees. The result is that ships operated by European shipowners and carrying goods from American car companies are kicked out of the U.S. route. Policy tools and policy objectives are directly hedged here.
Main line 1: The tanker super cycle and the drop in containers are two sides of the same crisis.
LR2 181 thousand US dollars/day, MR 56 thousand, Handymax 40 thousand, Suezmax second-hand ship transaction volume of 124 vessels (+35% year-on-year). The driving force comes from the detour to extend the voyage + engine room attack to remove the capacity, which is a supply contraction. And WCI 4,429 US dollars/FEU (-3%), transpacific -6%/-5%, is the weakening consumer demand (NRF forecast) Imports in November -11%). Judgment: This differentiation will continue to expand in the next 1-3 months. The high point for tankers may have occurred but the high point will last longer than expected; containers will be under pressure in the off-season from November to December, and the only variable is the strike in the United States. Falsification signal: If Hormuz traffic returns to more than 90% of pre-war levels and insurance rates fall, tanker rentals will quickly return to the mean within 4-6 weeks.
Main line two: Orders are concentrated in the triple "China + Super Large + Dual Fuel", and risks are also concentrated.
This week, 52 ships were collected from Maersk (Hudong-Zhonghua) with USD 5.76 billion and Hengli with USD 11 billion. Clarksons China accounted for 76.15% in September, and the number of ships on hand accounted for 72.12%. At the same time, Banchero Costa said that high ship prices will continue until 2027. Judgment: Ship owners are locking ship slots in advance for the carbon cost of 2030, not for the current freight price. But When the batch of 24,000TEU is delivered intensively in 2029-2030, if the global container volume growth rate is still 2-3%, there will be a structural excess - the scarcity premium of green ships cannot support such a large volume. False signal: If the first 24,000TEU order is resold or delayed in 2027, it means that shipowners are beginning to doubt the delivery rhythm.
Main line three: The pricing method of geo-risk is shifting from "traffic volume" to "insurance premium and compliance cost".
The public data of Hormuz is indeed fighting, but the difference is not in caliber. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that shipping volume is about 80% of normal levels; UKMTO's weekly report on October 30 showed that 122 ships left the port and 155 ships entered the port in the past seven days, which was higher than the 114/127 in the previous week, but the total is still about 70% lower than before the conflict. The two do not constitute a contradiction: one is the cargo volume, One count is the number of ships; UKMTO also pointed out that about 80% of the transit ships it counted were energy carriers - it was the energy ships that were retained during the contraction. The testable inference is that the transmission channel is insurance and compliance costs, not actual supply cuts, and the rise in oil prices and freight rates comes from risk premiums. At the same time, another ship sank in the Black Sea direction this week (CONTSHIP JET, a Liberian-registered container ship, suffered 3 accidents in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone An unmanned boat sank after being attacked, and all 18 crew members on board were rescued; according to the Bulgarian government, at least 6 merchant ships have been attacked by drones in the country's waters this month). Judgment: The risk premium will be long-term, but it will gradually shift from "freight" to "premium + detour cost", with the latter pushing up freight prices more moderately and more permanently.
The real signal this week is not which order is the largest, but that for the first time the shipping industry has simultaneously suffered from the two forces of "capacity taken away by geopolitics" and "demand pushed back by high freight prices" - which makes market judgment before 2027 more difficult than in the past five years.