Fast or Slow Steaming?

It is a mark of how the world has turned on its head that the hare is in danger of being ridiculed by the tortoise.
In little more than a year, slow steaming has become a cornerstone in shipping’s recovery. The logic seems unassailable:
it soaks up extra capacity and saves enormous amounts of fuel, providing a useful counterweight to bunker prices
that are once again heading north.

Additionally, as has been previously noted in these pages, slow-steaming also provides shipowners an unexpected
green card; the industry’s CO2 emissions collectively decline, it looks as if they are doing their bit to save
the planet. Bizarrely, the shipping industry is acting as one.

Meanwhile, the exact position of shippers is unclear precisely because one doesn’t exist. They too get to wave
the green card, but social responsibility remains secondary to survival and plenty of shippers are suffering as
much as the carriers.

Slow-steaming entails higher costs. Inventory that spends a week longer at sea is effectively cash thrown overboard,
although that was mitigated in the early days of slow steaming as slower services came with a reduced freight rate.
Not any more, rates are up and transit times longer than ever – if containers were passengers there’d be an outcry.

Some shippers will take it on the chin; others will turn the screw on their logistics providers to claw back the
time lost at sea; and some might even return to air freight.

Into this confusion steps the prospect of faster services returning to the seas. It is far too early to make a
judgement on the possible success of Horizon Line’s fast US west coast-China service, due to launch in December,
but shippers will welcome another alternative.

Maritime-connector.com