Transfar takes 4,600 teu boxship for $200,000 a day
Money is no object to the Singapore-registered, Alibaba-linked Transfar Shipping – getting box tonnage, whatever the costs is the priority in today’s tight container markets.
Brokers report Transfar has taken the 13-year-old, 4,600 teu Northern Prelude from Germany’s Northern Shipping for a period of up to three months at a stunning $200,000 a day.
Last week UK-based Lomar Shipping committed the 2010-built, 2,872 teu Windswept for $52m to Transfar. Lomar had picked up the ship – along with a sister vessel – in late 2020 for just over $10m per unit.
Transfar is owned by Chinese 3PL Worldwide Logistics, a company which Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, bought sizeable stake in 2020. The company is one of a host of new names who have entered the transpacific trades during the pandemic.
Wonder what will happen to all the container fleets that are being operated by the Transfars and other newcomers when they realise that their boxes are being scattered to the four winds and that they have no control over their whereabouts?
Storage, re-positioning and idle costs will start to hit them after their expensive ship charters have been redelivered and then they will wish they had spent more time on box logistics management.
NIce one.
Just wait till the PRC govt piles on this Alibaba outfit !!!!!