Maersk and MSC joined Hapag-Lloyd and ONE in temporarily suspending booking acceptance to Russia.
The services are still operating and bookings related to for example medical equipment and food will still be accepted.
This is essentially a way to mitigate risks in the wider supply chain. Services to Russia are still operating, but if they are suddenly stopped then all the containers already on the vessels would get stuck in the major hubs in Europe and worsen the congestion problem. In very round numbers this would amount to approximately 10.000 TEU per day for the whole market.
Hence the stop for new bookings reduce the amount of containers in the pipeline and therefore also reduce the risk of a major congestion problem should we see a cessation of Russian services.
The largest potential ripple effect for now would be if the overland rail link from China to Europe was halted. Right now the flow on the rail link from China to Europe is roughly 500.000 TEU. If this is stopped this would add almost 10.000 TEU per week of demand onto the Asia-Europe services where it would compete for space on vessels which are already full.
The cargo on the rail line is typically cargo where the shipper has a high focus on speed and has a higher willingness to pay for freight rates, and hence if this cargo was to be redirected onto the Ocean services it might price out some of the lower-value cargo on those vessels.
Source: LinkedIn (JK)
Source: LinkedIn