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The European Shippers Council (ESC) has accused container lines of price-signalling, following a wave of emergency bunker surcharges (EBSs).
A letter to the European Commission claims the introduction of an EBS by “most of the largest” container lines at the start of June was “unjustified”.
“Oil prices had indeed been rising during the last month, but the latest hike cannot be assimilated to an emergency,” says the letter.
“Oil price fluctuations, up or down, had been frequently happening in the past years and no negative surcharge ...
Comment on this article
Gary Ferrulli
June 15, 2018 at 2:58 pmA couple of notes and comments. First, the price of fuel didn’t start to go up last month or a month ago – it started 18 months ago and in that time has climbed over 65%. So this is not a sudden event, but the filing of a surcharge came months after the prices started to climb, Second, while publishing whatever they did so late, the carriers have also created a long list of exemptions from the surcharge through contracts negotiated with specific shippers. Those using the spot market may be paying a good portion of what is charged, that’s the realities of the spot market.
On the question of calculations, etc, what is being suggested there is cost based pricing. Be careful what you ask for, shippers won’t like the results. The 6 consecutive years of industry losses should give some evidence of that.
Seems to me a 65+% increase in fuel qualifies for a surcharge. and reality that there is market place pricing, not cost based and having nothing to do with signaling.