Freight moving through the region is getting hit twice — once by carriers, once by ins’ers. French shipping firm CMA CGM is adding a new peak-season surcharge (PSS) on shipments from Egypt’s Ain Sokhna to Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah this week — applying USD 150 per TEU for dry cargo and USD 300 per TEU for reefers, according to a statement.
The wider regional charges are considerably steeper: CMA CGM began applying a USD 1.5k-per-unit PSS from Adriatic, East Mediterranean, and Black Sea ports to the Gulf and Red Sea earlier this week, according to a separate statement. West Mediterranean cargo faces USD 1.5k per unit to the Gulf and USD 500 per unit to the Red Sea. The charge covers dry boxes, reefers, and out-of-gauge cargo.
Maersk is piling on too: Danish shipping firm Maersk is set to raise its PSS on shipments from the Indian subcontinent and Middle East to the US and Canada west xoast to USD 4k on 4 August from USD 3k — before taking the charge to USD 5k for dry containers from 15 August through year-end, according to a statement.
It’s not just carriers repricing risk: War-risk premiums for ships transiting Hormuz have surged to 3-10% of hull value as US-Iran hostilities intensify, The National reports — 12-40x the roughly 0.25% charged before the war, meaning coverage for a USD 100 mn tanker can now cost USD 3-10 mn, up from around USD 250k. Premiums had briefly eased to around 2% from 5% in late June when the brief US-Iran MoU briefly calmed the market, the Financial Times reported.
Related