CARRIERS appear to have been taken by surprise as poor demand in the China-Australia trade sees rates shrink and jostling for scarce cargo and market share ramp up.
Although no more voyage blankings have been announced since DCN’s last round-up sources suggest that’s because it’s probably too late to cancel, with only congestion- and weather-related schedule slides available to help prop up the market.
Since the beginning of 2026 the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index for Shanghai to Sydney has spiralled from USD 2,692/FEU in Week 1 to USD 1,740/FEU this week, with consecutive falls of -5%, -10%, -11% and -15%.
DCN is told “realistically, they’re now below a grand [USD 1,000/FEU] — not ideal” and quotes received from China-based forwarders suggests there’s nothing on the other side of Chinese New Year, 16-23 February, to support an immediate change.
While common sense may suggest that the additional capacity in the market arising from the advent of MSC’s weekly Kangaroo service — really a mechanism to position tonnage into Australia for the launch this week of its new Eagle ANZ-Americas operation — is a major contributor to the slide, sources report MSC to be “mostly holding the line on rates”.
And MSC does not appear amongst the most ‘generous’ of carriers in the Chinese forwarders’ quotes, where Evergreen, HMM, Sinolines and TS Lines are cheapest from most main ports, and Maersk from Qingdao.
Nevertheless, “their Kangaroo service is definitely applying implied pricing pressure to the market”, DCN was told.