Sea freight

In charter market terms, an analysis of the second half of the year should probably concentrate more on what didn’t happen than what did. Despite initial optimism, there was no banana surplus east of the Canal; neither the traders nor the majors were able to indulge in any spot banana chartering. Elsewhere, despite port issues strangling South Africa’s containerised citrus exports, there was no clarion call from shippers for the specialised mode to come to the rescue. However, on the positive side this was the first year that the reefer was utilised to load citrus into China. With the issues unlikely to be resolved by the time next year comes around, it will be interesting to see whether the South African mindset has changed by next May.