October 6, 2025 | Page 18

Container Shipping Quarterly

Special Report

2025 high of $ 6,040 per FEU in early June, according to Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. Rates on Asia – North Europe routes, also at $ 1,400 per FEU, were the lowest since December 2023, and spot prices on the westbound trans-Atlantic trade, had been at loss-making levels for weeks.

At the same time, capacity is steadily increasing. Carriers and vessel owners had a combined 9.3 million TEUs of container ship capacity on order as of September, equal to roughly 29 % of the in-service fleet, according to Alphaliner. About 1.8 million TEUs of capacity are set to be delivered this year, with another 1.6 million TEUs coming online in 2026, according to Drewry.

No going back

Still, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen told analysts on the carrier’ s recent second-quarter earnings call that while rates were falling on the major trade lanes, he could not imagine any scenario where they

12. Extent and Nature of Circulation would remain 10 % to 20 % below unit cost levels for a sustained period due to underlying supportive fundamentals.

“ Anyone who believes that freight rates would go back to that level, it’ s just not going to happen because we see EU ETS [ Emissions Trading System ], we see low-sulfur fuel, we see the prices of shipyards having

“ We expect a widening demand-supply imbalance into H2 25.”

gone up significantly on investments that need to be done for newer ships,” he said, adding that port congestion means boxes and ships take longer to turn.

In an aggressive move to bring down expenses in a rapidly eroding rate environment, Hapag-Lloyd recently launched a

Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 months

Actual Number of Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date

9 / 1 / 2025

2. Mail subscriptions 2890 3024

F. Total distribution( Sum of C and E) 6123 6234

G������������������������ ������������������������������������������������������������

42 17

13. I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete. Signed: Carmen �erenna, Manager, Production

9. Names and addresses of Publisher and Editor are: Publisher: Cindy Cronin 206 Winding Forest Drive, Troutman, NC 28166� Editor: Mark Szakonyi, 1200 G St NW, Washington, DC 20005: Managing Editor: Benjamin Meyer, 28 Algonquin Rd, Norwalk, CT 06851

10. Owner is: S & P Global, Inc, 55 WATER ST FL 39, NEW YORK, NY 10041-3207

11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities are: None.

NOTE: This required postal form does not include the additional distribution of digital editions of The Journal of Commerce magazine. comprehensive cost-cutting program that targets more than $ 1 billion in savings by the end of 2026, with the program extending across the carrier’ s network and including synergies and efficiency gains from its Gemini Corporation alliance with Maersk.

“ We set ourselves a target to bring unit costs down in a double-digit percentage versus what we saw in 2022... I think that is achievable,” Habben Jansen said.“ I also believe the $ 1 billion plus [ cost-cutting target ] is realistic to get that out until the end of next year.”

Habben Jansen said even with the extensive cuts in expenses, it would not bring the carrier costs back to 2019 levels“ for the very simple reason that some of our factor costs are very different.”

“ We did not have the EU ETS before COVID, and we did not have low-sulfur fuel. Those alone will drive up costs quite significantly,” he said.“ Then there has been inflation that impacts our cost as well, and you certainly cannot negotiate that away.”

Unit costs at Hapag-Lloyd rose 4 % in the first half year over year to $ 1,320 per TEU, up more than $ 300 per TEU compared with pre-pandemic times. However, a significant portion of the increased expenses were generated by the startup investments required in the transition of Hapag-Lloyd’ s services to the new Gemini Cooperation network.

While Gemini’ s startup expenses were adding to the costs of its members, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc outlined the cost savings that will be generated by the new network with“ two principal buckets” set to drive down unit costs.

“ One is the reliability of schedules that means lower fuel consumption,” Clerc said during the carrier’ s second-quarter earnings call.“ The second one is less sail distances, which also means higher asset intensity, where we can basically move more cargo on the same amount of tonnage, which lowers the unit cost as well.”

Clerc said cost increases in the charter markets and at marine terminals battling congestion were being exacerbated by ongoing diversions around southern Africa to avoid attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

“ We saw further inflation in the cost base because of the longer sailing distances that we have, which means that our breakeven point is higher now than it was in 2019,” he said, although he did not disclose Maersk’ s rate breakeven point.

email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com

18 Journal of Commerce | October 6, 2025 www. joc. com