OOCL sees Q2 volumes rise 11.2% to 1.45m teu

Hong Kong line Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) had a good second quarter with total volumes rising 11.2% to 1.45m teu from 1.31m teu previously. Total revenues also increased by 6.8% to $1.50bn from $1.41bn in the second quarter of last year.

Liftings rose across all segments including the key Intra-Asia trades for OOCL. Transpacific rose 12.7%, Asia-Europe spiked up 22.1% while Intra-Asia grew at a good pace of 9.1%.

Reflecting the tough market however revenue growth was slow in most trades except Asia-Europe, which saw a 24.4% jump. However this is off a low base of $245.6m in the previous corresponding quarter.

OOCL was able to make use of its new megaships coming online this year as even though loadable capacity increased by 2.1% in the second quarter, overall load factor rose 6.5% compared to the same period in 2013. Overall average revenue per teu however dropped by 4.0% compared to the second quarter of last year.

For the first half, total volumes rose by 10.1% to 2.81m teu from 2.55m teu in the same period last year while total revenues rose 4.3% to $2.89bn from $2.77bn previously.

The second half of the year, and the upcoming usual high season will be important for OOCL this year as the first half suggests a slowing trend scenario of increased loadable capacity, which rose 2.9%, against falling overall average revenue per teu which fell by 5.3% in order to keep the overall load factor still rising 5.0 % from the first half of 2013.

Source: www.seatrade-global.com