Sea freight market update | March 2021

DACHSER keeps moving rail freight via the middle corridor

Despite the Russia-Ukraine conflict, DACHSER keeps connecting China and Europe by its railway services via an alternative route – the middle corridor. Since the end of May 2022, the logistics provider has been organizing a train connection on the Xi’an-Budapest route with at least one departure per week.

Brexit checklist - what should you watch out for?

What should DACHSER customers pay attention to in the case of a hard Brexit?
Delays when it comes to border crossing would be a major challenge in the case of a hard Brexit - the other would be the new bureaucratic burden of goods traffic with Great Britain. First and foremost, longer waiting times through border controls and customs clearance of all goods should be expected under WTO rules. For companies that send shipments to and from the UK, we have summarized them in our Brexit checklist that can be downloaded below:

Latest update on DACHSER Air & Sea Logistics operations

With this update DACHSER would like to inform about the current DACHSER Air & Sea Logistics operations across the regions APAC, EMEA and Americas. In the attached document (see download below) it is listed whether a country organization of DACHSER is operational or, if only limited or not at all, why this is the case. Since the situation in the countries may change rapidly, the attached document will be updated on a regular basis and published on our website.

We sincerely regret any inconveniences caused to our customers due to the pandemic. At DACHSER, we have contingency measures in place and will offer our customers the best alternative solutions to keep the supply chain running. Anyhow, the situation at ports, airports or customs authorities might cause delays. Furthermore, the capacity situation on the global airfreight market is very tense as there are basically no passenger flights operating at the moment.

At the same time, DACHSER has installed strict hygiene measures (e.g. home office) to ensure a safe working environment and to do our part in stopping the spread of the virus. DACHSER is trying to keep the impact of these measures as low as possible, however, together with the official measures by the governments, the precautions may lead to some delays in the operations.

In case of any questions and/or queries, please feel free to contact your local DACHSER representative.

IMO 2020 regulations are making ships cleaner

Commonly known as IMO 2020, the new environmental guidelines from the International Maritime Organization for global shipping traffic will take effect in January 2020. From then on, all ships on the open sea will be required to reduce their emissions of sulfur oxides by 85 per cent. This applies worldwide to all fuels used on the open sea.

IMO 2020 is an important step towards achieving a better ecological balance sheet for the industry, as international sea transportation generates about one billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year and is responsible for 3 percent of all fine particulate matter created by human activity.

Carriers will have a number of more environmentally friendly options available to them. For example, they may choose to continue using heavy oil but also install special exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers); or switch to alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), very low sulfur fuel (VLSF), or marine diesel oil (MDO) sein.

The relevant country’s port authority is responsible for compliance with IMO 2020 and can check this with a detector and the ship’s logs. Violators will be subject to fines, ship detention, or even imprisonment.

Being a logistics service provider, DACHSER does not operate its own ships, but works with major shipping lines. “We, too, are interested in finding the most sustainable way to handle our transports,” says Rolf Mertins, Head of Global Management Ocean at DACHSER. “At the same time, we want to offer our customers scheduling reliability.”

Based on collaboration with partner carriers, DACHSER has now developed its own fuel cost model, the DACHSER Bunker Adjustment Reference Floater (DBAF). Replacing the Standard Bunker Factor (SBF) on mid- and long-term transactions, the DBAF is calculated based on the fuel prices of all relevant trades. “On this basis, we can calculate customers’ fuel-related costs irrespective of the carrier option,” Mertins concludes.

Effective December 1, 2019, there will be a Transition Environmental Fuel Fee for all Less-than-Container-Load (LCL) Freight All Kinds (FAK) businesses until further notice. The fee is in addition to any bunker charges.

For more details, please get in touch with your local DACHSER representative.