集装箱航运业:波动性,不确定性和扰乱

There must be something badly wrong with a business when customers tell suppliers they should put their prices up.

当客户告诉供应商他们应该提价时，行业一定出了严重的问题。

Yet this has happened repeatedly in the world’s shipping industry as it struggles to cope with an imbAlance between supply and demand that is creating uncertainty and disruption both for shipping lines and for the companies that depend on them to carry their goods across the world.

但是，这一幕已多次出现在艰难应对供需不平衡的全球航运业。这种失衡正在给航运公司以及依靠它们将货物运往世界各地的企业带来不确定性和扰乱。

“People are asking carriers for price increases just to make sure their cargos are actually shipped,” says Patrik Berglund, co-founder and chief executive of Xeneta, a Norwegian company that tracks container shipping rates.

追踪集装箱运费的挪威公司Xeneta的联合创始人和首席执行官帕特里克?贝里隆德(Patrik Berglund)说：“人们正促请航运公司提高价格，以确保自己的货物真的被装运。”

Such appeals have become routine. At last week’s Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference organised by the Journal of Commerce, an industry publication, in Long Beach, California, Rob Kusciel, head of transport and logistics at Honeywell, told delegates that “carriers are pricing below cost and it is not sustainable”.

此类请求已变成常态。最近，在由行业出版物《Journal of Commerce》在加州长滩主办的泛太平洋海运会议(Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference)上，霍尼韦尔(Honeywell)运输与物流主管Rob Kusciel对与会代表们表示：“承运人正把价格定在成本以下，这是不可持续的”。

Peter Levesque, chief executive of Modern Terminals, a container port operator based in Hong Kong, said the current pricing model was “broken” and that shipping companies were operating at rates that were unprofitable “to the level of strangulation”, the JOC reported.

据《Journal of Commerce》报道，总部位于香港的集装箱码头运营商——现代货柜码头公司(Modern Terminals)首席运营官彼得?莱韦斯克(Peter Levesque)表示，当前的定价模式“乱了套”，航运公司赖以维持经营的运费已经无利可图“至窒息的水平”。

This is despite the fact that the average cost of shipping a 40ft container from East Asia to the east coast of South America has risen from $500 to $3,285 over the past 12 months, according to Xeneta.

这还不算以下事实：根据Xeneta的数据，过去12个月里，将一个40英尺集装箱从东亚运至南美洲东海岸的平均成本已从500美元涨至3285美元。

Indeed, 2017 has begun with a cascade of what should be good news for the shipping industry. Growth in emerging markets is surging ahead, rising to 6.4 per cent in January according to the Institute of International Finance, an industry association. Activity in the US and other developed markets is picking up, leading to a reported increase in capital expenditure globally with the prospect of rising demand for EM exports. An index of export managers’ activity compiled by China’s customs service rose to 41.5 in January from 32 a year earlier.

的确，2017年伊始出现了一连串应该利好航运业的事态。根据行业组织国际金融协会(IIF)的数据，新兴市场的经济迅猛增长，1月加速至6.4%。美国及其他发达市场的经济活动正出现起色，导致全球资本支出增加，这意味着对新兴市场出口的需求可能越来越大。中国海关编制的出口经理人指数从一年前的32升至今年1月的41.5。

Yet the rise in container rates over the past year hides extreme price volatility. As the first chart shows, the cost of shipping a 40ft container from, say, Shanghai to Santos on a short-term contract has swung wildly over the past year, according to Xeneta’s data. The chart shows only the average cost: some shippers report paying as little as $50 or even $25 a container.

但过去一年集装箱运费的上涨掩盖了极端的价格波动。如图表一（见下）所示，根据Xeneta的数据，按短期合同将一个40英尺集装箱（比方说）从上海运至巴西桑托斯的成本在过去一年经历了剧烈波动。该图只显示了平均成本：一些托运人称，他们为一个集装箱支付的运费曾经低至50甚至25美元。

The danger for shippers of rates this low is that, sometimes, it hardly seems worth the carriers’ while to pick the containers up — so, sometimes, they do not.

如此低的运费给托运人带来的风险在于，有时候，这似乎都不值得承运人费事发运集装箱——有时候，他们真的不管这些集装箱。

“Imagine a vessel approaching Shanghai,” says Mr Berglund at Xeneta. “They look at the boxes on the dock and say that one yields so much, and that one yields a third of the amount. The low-yielding box will be the last one to be picked up.”

“设想一艘进入上海港的船舶，”Xeneta的贝里隆德说，“他们看着码头上的集装箱，然后说这个利润这么多，而那个利润只有前者的三分之一。低利润的集装箱只能最后被吊上船。”

Exacerbating this situation is an industry practice of using unenforceable contracts: both shipper and carrier want flexibility on volumes, with the corollary that neither can hold the other to their word.

加剧这种状况的是一种采用不可强制执行的合同的行业惯例：托运人和承运人都希望在货运量上保持灵活性，其必然结果是双方都无法让对方信守承诺。

In normal times, things tend to balance out. But these are not normal times. The second chart shows the value of global trade since 1948, according to Unctad, the United Nations trade body. As globalisation advanced after the second world war, trade expanded on an almost unbroken trend.

在正常时期，往往可以逐渐实现平衡。但现在并非正常时期。图表二（见下）显示根据联合国贸发会议(Unctad)的数据编制的1948年以来全球贸易总价值。随着二战后全球化不断推进，贸易以一种几乎从未间断的趋势不断扩大。

By the first decade of this century, the pace of growth was faster than ever. To cope with rising volumes, shipping companies commissioned more and more ships, in ever bigger sizes. With economies of scale, shipping rates fell.

本世纪头10年，全球贸易增速比之前任何一个时期都快。为了处理不断增多的货运量，航运公司订造了越来越多船舶，而船的吨位也越来越大。规模经济效应导致运费下降。

But then came the global financial crisis, followed by years of uncertainty and what many see as the current unravelling of globalisation. With the Trump administration in the US making promises of protectionism, the future of shipping has never been less certain.

但接着爆发了全球金融危机，随后是多年的不确定性以及许多人眼中正在上演的全球化逆转。鉴于美国特朗普政府作出种种保护主义承诺，航运业的未来从未像现在这样难以捉摸。

The disruption of globalisation came at a time when ships were being built like never before. Yet when trade recovered after the global crisis, shipping lines again put in big orders. The global shipping industry now suffers from overcapacity on an unprecedented scale.

全球化遇挫之际，造船活动达到前所未有的规模。然而，当全球金融危机过后贸易复苏时，航运公司又一次发出大笔订单。如今，全球航运业遭遇规模空前的运力过剩。

VesselsValue, a company that monitors the value of the world’s ships, says 2,028 container vessels are currently valued at or below their value as scrap metal, with the other 3,242 vessels in the world valued at more than scrap. In volume terms, 7.3m teus (20ft-equivalent units), or nearly a third of the global fleet, is at or below scrap, with 16.2m teus above.

监测全球船舶价值的VesselsValue公司称，当前，2028艘集装箱船的估值处在或低于其作为废钢的价值，全球另有3242艘集装箱船的估值高于废钢。按运力计算，730万个20英尺标准集装箱（相当于全球集装箱船队运力的近三分之一）的运力处于或低于废钢价，1620万个标准集装箱的运力的估值高于废钢。

The situation may be about to get worse. Alphaliner, a company that monitors ship construction, says total shipping capacity will grow by an average of 4 per cent a year in 2017 and 2018, on top of existing idle capacity of 7 per cent. The biggest problem is in mega-ships: more than 150 new ships with the ability to carry more than 10,000 teus at a time will be delivered by the end of next year.

这种状况可能将变得更糟。监测船舶建造的Alphaliner公司表示，全球总运力将在2017年和2018年平均每年增长4%，这还不算现有的7%的闲置运力。最大的问题在于巨型货轮：逾150艘一次可承运超过1万个标准集装箱的新船将在明年底之前交付。

What this means for the world’s shipyards is a separate story. Big shipping lines, where they can, have been cancelling orders. In a bid to keep container rates up, they have also cancelled sailings. Mr Berglund says that during this year’s Chinese new year celebrations, when volumes fall away, shipping lines from China to northern Europe pulled out as much as 43 per cent of their capacity.

这对全球造船厂而言意味着什么则是另一回事。在可能的情况下，大型航运公司正在取消订单。为了保持集装箱运费处于合理区间，它们还取消了航行班次。贝里隆德说，在今年的中国农历新年期间，当货物量锐减时，经营从中国到北欧班轮的航运公司砍掉了多达43%的运力。

The third chart compares short-term rates with long-term rates on the China to northern Europe route. The jumps in the short-term rates portray general rate increases, or GRIs, announced publicly by one shipping company after another, usually around the same time.

图表三比较了中国至北欧航线的短期运费和长期运费。短期价格跃升表述为综合费率上涨附加费(GRI)，通常在差不多同一时间由航运公司一个接一个公开宣布。

As the first and third charts show, GRIs tend to stick only for a while. Long-term rates, seen in the third chart, are more stable but tend to trail short-term rates with a lag. Recently, shipping lines have managed to impose higher long-term rates. The short line at the end of the third chart shows only those contracts agreed in the past three months.

如图表一和图表三所示，GRI往往只持续一小段时间。长期运费（如图表三所示，见下）更加稳定，但倾向于滞后于短期运费。近期，航运公司成功地实行了更高的长期运费。图表三末尾的短线只显示了过去3个月签订的合同。

Some shippers will be relieved to be paying real-world rates again. It means they can be more certain that their goods will be delivered.

再次支付切合实际的运费将让一些托运人如释重负。这意味着他们可以更加确定自己的货物将被送达目的地。

“For many shippers rates fell so low as to be insignificant,” says Mr Berglund. “But then they started to suffer disruption to their supply chains. If your cargo is stuck at sea — and for a small company that can mean your entire stock — that’s a crisis. All of a sudden ocean freight became incredibly important, and that’s when prices picked up again.”

“对于许多托运人而言，运费已降至如此之低的水平，使其（对于总成本）无足轻重，”贝里隆德说，“但接着他们开始遭遇供应链扰乱。如果你的货物被困海上（对一家小公司这可能意味着全部库存）那就是一场危机。突然间，远洋货运变得极其重要，这就是价格再次上扬的时候。”

The biggest single disruptive event of recent times was last year’s collapse of Hanjin, a South Korean shipping line many of whose ships were left adrift for months. It can be seen in the jump in the China-northern Europe rate last October, which has stuck for longer than most.

近期最大的一起破坏性事件是去年韩国的韩进海运(Hanjin Shipping)破产，该公司的很多船舶滞留于海上数月之久。这体现于去年10月中国至北欧的运费猛涨，这一上涨的持续时间也超过多数航线。

But the Hanjin incident has not yet played out. Some of its capacity is still returning to the market. Short-term rates have begun falling again. Mr Berglund says the latest round of negotiations for the Asia-northern Europe corridor, which usually takes place at the end of each calendar year, has been abandoned by both sides because of the level of uncertainty.

但韩进事件的影响还没有结束。该公司的一些运力正在重返市场。短期运费已再次开始下降。贝里隆德介绍说，鉴于巨大的不确定性，围绕亚洲-北欧航线的最新一轮谈判（通常在每年年底举行）已被双方放弃。

“From the point of view of the shipping lines, which have been bleeding billions over the past few years, that makes sense,” he says. “From the shippers’ point of view, it’s a huge risk but I can understand it given the uncertainty.”

“从过去几年遭受巨额亏损的航运公司的视角看，这有道理，”他说，“从托运人的角度看，这是一个巨大的风险，但考虑到不确定性，我可以理解。”

Both sides will be watching the fall in short-term rates shown in the third chart. If the past is any guide, it suggests long-term rates will fall again. Volatility, uncertainty and disruption may be back before long.

双方都将关注图表三所示的短期运费下降。如果历史可以为鉴，它似乎表明长期运费将再次下降。波动性、不确定性和扰乱可能不久就会回来。