Spot rates for U.S. importers may have temporarily peaked, but they remain exceptionally high, with no sign of a true plunge. Some indexes do show a moderate pullback, others very little or none at all. The hope for any major decline in shipping costs has been pushed back to Chinese New Year in February at the earliest.

The S&P Global Platts index for North Asia-West Coast rates — which does not include premiums charges — was at $8,400 per forty-foot equivalent unit on Wednesday. That’s down slightly from an all-time high of $9,000 per FEU in early October, but still up 140% year on year. Platts’ North Asia-East Coast assessment was at $9,950 per FEU, a mere $50 off the all-time high reached earlier this month.

George Griffiths, editor of global container freight at Platts, told American Shipper, “The market should be quite weak at the moment because everybody’s got their Christmas demand all booked, but there’s still enough demand to keep rates where they are.

“The market is now saturated with cargo and demand is so high that sentiment almost doesn’t matter anymore. The fundamentals are driving the market and we haven’t seen a change in fundamentals,” said Griffiths.

He attributed the slight pullback in rates earlier this month to China’s Golden Week holiday. “There was just a little bit of breathing space, the first little gasp of air that left carriers conceding a little bit of ground towards shippers, but there are still these bottlenecks and there are still all these ships in San Pedro Bay.”

The Freightos Baltic Daily Index (FBX) — which does include premiums in its trans-Pacific assessments — put the Asia-West Coast spot rate at $16,145 per FEU as of Wednesday. That’s down from $20,486 per FEU in mid-September but still 4.2 times higher than rates at this time last year.

Furthermore, FBX Asia-West Coast rates has bounced back from their recent low of $13,025 per FEU on Oct. 8, and have held relatively firm over recent weeks. FBX Asia-East Coast rates were at $19,451 per FEU on Wednesday, 4.2 times rates a year before. Rates on this lane are still within $2,000 of all-time highs.

Regarding reports that trans-Pacific premium surcharges are falling, Xeneta CEO Patrik Berglund said, “We don’t see a reduction in premiums. We see a wide spread in premiums from one carrier to the next and also by location. Whether it’s Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan or China, these premiums have a very different spread. It’s not one market going from the Far East to the U.S.”

Xeneta reported that some annual contracts are already being negotiated for 2022. “There are long-term tenders running at the moment,” said Braun.

According to Berglund, “We’re already receiving rates for full-year 2022 and we’ve seen some odd results.” In some cases, he said, “Asia-U.S. East Coast has come in cheaper than Asia-U.S. West Coast, which says a lot about [sentiment that] congestion will not be solved in the intermediate term.”

By Greg Miller, Senior Editor