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ContainerSignal Daily: Total loss expected on boxship cargo

By ContainerSignal Editorial · · 12 min read

Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express have told customers that most of the cargo on the fire-damaged Espirito Santo Express is likely to be severely damaged or a total loss, more than two weeks after a fire broke out aboard the ship in the South Atlantic. Both carriers said the assessment came from the vessel’s owner, Seaspan, gCaptain reported.

“Based on the latest information received via the vessel owner Seaspan we expect the vast majority of the cargo to be either severely damaged by the fire or a total loss,” Hapag-Lloyd said in its latest customer update. The fire is under control, but the ship has not yet reached a port of refuge, so the condition of individual containers is still unknown and a full damage assessment has to wait.

That is the change since this briefing last reported the casualty on 23 October, when Hapag-Lloyd said it could not confirm the state of any shipment. The Singapore-flagged ship, built in 2018 and chartered by Hapag-Lloyd from Seaspan, caught fire on 15 October while sailing from Singapore to Santos, Brazil, on ONE’s East Coast South America Express 1 service. All 28 crew were rescued by the Portuguese-flagged bulk carrier Aeolian Arrow, whose chief officer was lost overboard during the recovery of its rescue boat. The cause remains under investigation and neither carrier has given a date for the ship’s arrival at a place of refuge.

Today’s Signals

Carrier Updates

ONE more than doubled its full-year profit forecast after a strong second quarter. The Singapore-based carrier reported net profit of US$1.32 billion for the quarter to 30 September, against US$285 million a year earlier, on revenue of US$6.27 billion, Container News reported. Operating profit reached US$1.36 billion and EBITDA US$1.99 billion. Volumes rose to 3.4 million TEU from 3.26 million TEU, and the average freight rate to US$1,709 per TEU from US$1,252, while the average bunker price climbed to US$749 per tonne from US$518. ONE lifted its full-year net profit guidance to US$2 billion from US$900 million and its revenue forecast to US$21 billion from US$19.4 billion. The guidance assumes current conditions in the Strait of Hormuz persist to the end of the financial year and that Suez Canal transits resume gradually. ONE operated 280 vessels of 2.27 million TEU at the end of September, with 51 ships on order including long-term chartered newbuildings.

K Line’s first-half profit rose 81.5% on its ONE stake. Net income attributable to owners reached JPY124.5 billion for the six months to 30 September, with ordinary income nearly doubling to JPY118.3 billion and revenue up 20.3% to JPY602 billion, Container News reported. The containership segment’s ordinary income rose to JPY74.4 billion from JPY22.1 billion, of which JPY68.9 billion came in the second quarter. K Line kept the full-year forecast it revised on 23 October, for revenue of JPY1.17 trillion and ordinary income of JPY190 billion, and now expects JPY107 billion of containership ordinary income against JPY53 billion previously. Its outlook does not assume a full return to Suez transits in the financial year, and it expects conditions around Hormuz to normalise towards the end of March 2027.

CMA CGM has put a war risk surcharge on Black Sea container cargo. The carrier will charge US$35 per TEU on all cargo to and from Black Sea countries from 9 November, moving to 1 December for the United States and its territories, Australia, New Zealand and Latin American countries that require regulatory filing, Container News reported. CMA CGM cited the Joint War Committee’s designation of the Black Sea as a war risk area on 16 September and a deterioration in the operational situation. Separately, it set a dangerous goods surcharge of US$150 per TEU for IMDG cargo from northern Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa to Jeddah and Port Sudan, and to the Indian subcontinent via Jeddah, effective 27 October.

Hapag-Lloyd is targeting 1.7 million TEU a year in Africa by 2030. The carrier said its African volumes passed 1 million TEU for the first time in 2026, without disclosing the exact figure, and that it serves 27 African countries, Container News reported. It marks 20 years in South Africa, where it employs 52 people, and has built the position through the 2021 acquisition of NileDutch and the 2022 purchase of Deutsche Afrika-Linien’s container business.

Ports

Berth waits across Asia-Pacific are running at two to four days at the main gateways. DHL Global Forwarding’s week 44 update, covering 26 October to 1 November, lists waits of two to three days at both Manila terminals, with four vessels waiting at Manila North on 28 October and yard density at 80% to 85%, and six vessels at Manila South, PortCalls Asia reported. Ningbo had 20 vessels waiting on 29 October with waits of three to four days and improvement expected from week 46, Shanghai had 69 vessels at Waigaoqiao and 14 at Yangshan with waits of two to three days, Busan’s BNCT yard has been above 90% since October with waits of 1.5 to 2 days, and Port Klang averaged two days with 15 vessels at anchor on 29 October. The forwarder also recorded typhoon closures of 28 hours at Fuzhou on 23 and 24 October and 30 hours at Ningbo on 24 and 25 October. These are forwarder observations rather than terminal authority data, and the pattern is longer dwell at yards rather than a single blocked port, which is what makes it slow to clear and hard to see in headline throughput.

Piraeus’ own terminal is losing volume even as its concession terminals grow. Piraeus Port Authority said third-quarter throughput at Pier I rose 0.3%, or 524 TEU, the first positive quarter of 2026, with August and September up 11.5% or 10,161 TEU after new handling agreements took retroactive effect from July, Container News reported. For the nine months, Pier I handled 394,338 TEU, down 27.8% from 546,399 TEU, with local volumes down 34.1% at 131,799 TEU, Pier I revenue down 26% to EUR 34.8 million and a pre-tax loss of EUR 3.9 million against a EUR 6.5 million profit a year earlier. Revenue from the Piers II and III concession, which COSCO Shipping Ports operates, rose 3.2% to EUR 70.7 million.

Fleet & Capacity

Eastern Pacific Shipping has been linked to four midsize boxships at Imabari. Shipbuilding sources identified Idan Ofer’s Singapore-based owner as the buyer, in what would be its first containership order in Japan in four years and would take its boxship orderbook past 65 vessels worth more than US$5.5 billion, Splash reported. Prices and delivery dates have not emerged. EPS has concentrated recent orders in China, including eight 6,000 TEU ships at Hengli Heavy Industry and China Merchants yards priced at close to US$80 million each, and six 1,800 TEU feeders at China Merchants Jinling at around US$30 million each. The order is reported, not confirmed by the owner.

Samudera has ordered two 3,000 TEU ships for delivery by 2030. The Singapore-listed line said the newbuildings would strengthen its container capacity and support long-term operational requirements, and that the contracts are not expected to materially affect net tangible assets or earnings per share for the year to 31 December 2026, Container News reported. The yards and price were not disclosed.

Trade Routes

CU Lines has replaced Sohar with Duqm on its China to Gulf Express loop. The carrier added the Omani port this month on a service that runs once every three weeks, with a rotation of Qingdao, Ningbo, Shekou, Nansha, Port Klang, Khor Fakkan, Duqm and back to Qingdao, Container News reported, citing DynaLiners. Moving a Gulf call from Sohar to Duqm shifts the relay point for Chinese and Malaysian cargo at a time when the established Gulf hubs are the congested ones, and it puts more dependence on a single Omani port and its landside connections. What transshipment means explains why those relay choices matter more than the ocean leg when a hub is disrupted.

Freight Rates

There has been no new index assessment since yesterday’s briefing. Drewry’s next World Container Index is due on 5 November, after the 29 October reading of US$4,429 per 40ft container reported here yesterday. What the same Drewry commentary adds is the blank sailing programme: six blank sailings have been announced on the transpacific for the week ahead, up from five this week, and four on Asia-Europe, down from eight, which the consultancy reads as tighter transpacific capacity and more effective capacity on the Europe lane. Drewry expects transpacific rates to fall again next week on weaker US import demand and Asia-Europe rates to hold while carriers test higher November FAK levels. How blank sailings work sets out why the count matters as much as the rate.

What It Means

The cargo warning turns a casualty into a commercial event. Most of the cargo on a large ship on the South America east coast run is now expected to be lost, and because the vessel has still not reached a port of refuge, shippers will not know which containers survived for some time. Salvage, surveys and claims will run for months, and the SX1 service has to absorb the loss of a ship at a point in the year when South America east coast capacity is already tight. For importers and exporters the practical point is that a fire on a modern, well-operated ship can still destroy the cargo in a single bay, whatever the schedule reliability of the service.

The earnings numbers from ONE and K Line are the other side of the same market. Both are making far more than they did a year ago, and both attribute it to rates held up by the Hormuz disruption and by congestion, not to demand growth. ONE’s guidance assumes Hormuz stays constrained and Suez only reopens gradually, and K Line does not assume a full Suez return this financial year at all. Carrier forecasts are therefore close to a bet that the disruption lasts, which is why the pace of the Suez return set out in the analysis of the half-finished Suez return matters beyond the canal itself.

Congestion is doing part of that work. The Asia-Pacific waits are measured in days rather than weeks, but they are spread across Manila, Ningbo, Shanghai, Busan and Port Klang at once, and vessels and boxes sitting at anchor absorb effective capacity without any change in the fleet. That supports intra-Asia and headhaul rates at the same time as the transpacific spot market weakens on US demand. Schedule reliability is the metric to watch: if on-time performance improves into December, the capacity cushion disappears and the rate argument weakens with it.

The ordering continues regardless. EPS is reported to be adding four more ships and Samudera two, on top of a record orderbook, at the same time as CMA CGM prices Black Sea war risk at US$35 per TEU. New tonnage arriving into a network that is already absorbing disruption is the setup for the next phase of the cycle, once the diversions unwind.

Sources

Background reading

The explainers behind today's stories, if you want the fundamentals first.

Container rates are falling. The cost has moved to the rail leg

Drewry's index fell 3% in the week to 29 October while 35,688 boxes waited for trains at LA-Long Beach, showing where the import chain now jams.

Asia-Europe rates are riding a half-finished Suez return

Sixty-three percent of Far East to Europe capacity now uses Red Sea routings, but many loops still return via the Cape. That gap explains the rate rebound.

Asia-Europe rates fall even as the container network stays tight

Asia-Europe spot rates fell for a twelfth week while intra-Asia set another record and mid-size tonnage ran scarce. The two readings measure different layers.

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