The Chinese coronavirus outbreak is costing container lines $350m per week due to lost volumes.
This is according to Danish analyst Sea-Intelligence, which said 350,000 teu has been cut from the export and import market every seven days since the disease broke out.
The company said 21 Pacific voyages have been cancelled due to the virus, which equals 198,500 teu, while the number of cancellations between Europe and Asia is estimated at 10, corresponding to 151,500 teu.
Alphaliner has estimated that the extended Chinese New Year holidays, aimed at curbing the disease's spread, will reduce box volumes at Chinese ports, including Hong Kong, by more than 6m teu in the first quarter.
"This volume contraction is expected to reduce global container throughput growth by at least 0.7% for the full year," the consultancy said.
Alphaliner added that the full impact will not be fully measurable until ports announce their throughput numbers for the first quarter.
But data collected on weekly container vessel calls at key Chinese ports already show a reduction of over 20% since 20 January.
On top of service reductions announced earlier, carriers reacted to the situation with additional void sailings in February, thus accounting for reduced cargo volumes, it said.
Since these extended void sailing programmes on long-haul services are slated to continue until mid-March, Alphaliner added that any cargo volume recovery could be negatively affected, even after the end of the holidays.
Normal apart from Wuhan
Port operations are normal at all terminals except for the origin of the epidemic, Wuhan, which handled 1.7m teu of container cargo in 2019, accounting for 0.6% of total Chinese port throughput.
Alphaliner said industrial production has been affected, with negative consequences for exports, which trigger sailing cancellations and charterers issuing notices of redeliveries at the earliest contractual date.
"Other problems range from large-scale flight cancellations that impede crew changes, to severe staff shortages at many of China’s most active shipyards," Alphaliner said.
