Based on the resilience of the food supply chain and the
import/export trade in key food stuffs, reefer shipping is expected to outpace
the broader dry cargo trade according to the maritime research and consulting
firm Drewry. In its latest Reefer Shipping Annual Review and Forecast 2020/21
report Drewry expects that reefer shipping will be able to withstand the
current economic pressures, but notes that they expect a tightening in the
availability of refrigerated container equipment.
Drewry forecasts that seaborne reefer traffic will reach 156
million tons by 2024, representing average annual expansion of 3.7 percent,
which is faster than the anticipated growth in the wider dry cargo trade. They
note that this growth will come despite a slowing in the growth in seaborne
perishable cargo in 2019.
Worldwide seaborne reefer trade recorded growth of just 1.7
percent in 2019 to 130.5 million tons according to Drewry, its weakest rate of
growth since 2015. Traffic growth they reported was held back by lower
shipments of both deciduous and citrus fruits due to extreme weather conditions
in Europe and drought in South Africa and Chile. The declines in fruit
shipments, however, was offset by strong increases in pork shipments to China
following the outbreak of African swine fever.
“Drewry expects the reefer trade to be more recession proof
against the economic impacts of COVID-19,” said Drewry’s head of reefer
shipping research Philip Gray. “And near term, it will continue to benefit from
African swine fever induced protein demand into Asia. The continuing trade
standoff between the US and China remains a threat to transpacific trade, but
could provide opportunities on other routes through trade substitution, such as
East Coast South America to Asia.”
Drewry also highlights an umber of key shifts taking place
in the shipments of reefer cargoes. Key among them is the shift to fully
cellular containerships as the supply of specialized reefer vessels continues
to decline. Bananas and fish are the biggest commodities carried in specialized
reefer ships and their largest trade route is West Coast of South America, due
to Ecuador prominence in growing bananas, with the ships sailing the
historically banana trade routes to Europe.
Due to an aging fleet of reefer vessels and limited
investments in new specialized reefer vessels, Drewry projects a continued
decline for these vessels. In 2019, specialized reefer vessels carried just 13
percent of the trade and according to Drewry it will further decline to just 8
percent by 2024.
Strong trade growth and modal shift Drewry however points
out is continuing to growth in reefer container cargo volumes outpacing the
wider container shipping market. They estimate that worldwide containers ship
volume of reefer cargo grew by 3.4 percent in 2019 to 5.3 million feu. In its
report, Drewry is forecasting average annual containerized reefer growth
approaching 5 percent in the period to 2024.
It is expected to far outstrip that of dry the container trade.
“However, availability of refrigerated shipping container
equipment remains a challenge, due to the highly imbalanced nature of reefer
trade routes,” added Gray. “And Drewry expects conditions to tighten as
equipment fleet growth is not expected to keep pace with projected cargo
demand.”
Based on analysis of the top 15 reefer trade routes covered
in the report, Drewry estimates that global deep sea reefer trades are 82
percent imbalanced, with major exporting regions such as South and Central
America, Oceania and Southern Africa limited by particularly high negative
imbalance ratios.