Customers that need to ship freight between Europe, the United States, Canada and Mexico beginning in July will find the cost of Oriental Overseas Container Line’s (OOCL) Trans Atlantic container shipping services has increase. OOCL released a statement to this affect recently and this news appears to have been met with very little comment by customers. It appears that OOCL could be trying to make some of the money they might have lost during the past two years of rough seas for the container shipping industry. The truth of this statement doesn’t really mean much to customers that will have to pay the higher freight rates starting on July 1, according to the release by OOCL.
Just how much will the cost of transporting containers increase on July 1? The general rate increase on westbound 20 ft containers from Europe to the United States, Canada and Mexico will be US$400, while the cost for a 40 ft container will go up by US$500. Eastbound containers going from the United States, Canada and Mexico to Europe will go up by US$320 for 20 ft containers and US$ 400 for 40 ft containers.
This is news that many in the container shipping industry were probably expecting to hear at some point and we can probably expect other lines to follow suit eventually, if not sooner and increase their general price for container transport as well. The container shipping industry will be looking at trying to recover some of the financial losses that they might have experienced during the rough seas and this certainly won’t come as a surprise to customers or the container shipping industry in general.