Cargo ship calls at Singapore hub plummet to 27-year low: report

Shipping activity and bunkering demand remained weak in June.

Cargo ship arrivals in Singapore, the world’s top transhipment and bunkering hub, plummeted to their lowest in nearly three decades in May, whilst dragging sales of marine fuels to a three-month low, official data showed.

As the coronavirus pandemic hit global trade, the number of cargo ships calling at the world’s top transhipment port fell in May to 3,059, the lowest since at least January 1993, the oldest available figure, data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) showed.

Shipping activity may stay sluggish as container ship activity and bunkering demand remain weak in June, analysts and traders said.

Blank sailings, when a vessel skips a port on its route or the entire journey is cancelled, have surged in the first week of June, with the total pandemic-induced blanked capacity nearing 4 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), shipping analysis firm Sea-Intelligence said last week.

On 14 June, Trade Minister Chan Chun Sing said the pace of planned extensions to Singapore’s ports would depend on future demand as the pandemic batters the trade-reliant economy.

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