OOCL Reports 7 Percent Revenue Increase; Cancels Several Asia-Europe Sailings For Three Months

Hong Kong-based Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) said it generated revenue of nearly $1.57 billion in the second quarter of 2019, 7.1 percent more than in the same period last year. In the first half of this year, revenue amounted to nearly $3.03 billion, 6.5 percent more than in the first half of 2018.

According to OOCL's quarterly operational update, the company handled nearly 1.77 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo in the second quarter of 2019, 4.6 percent more than in the second quarter of 2018. In the first half of 2019, OOCL handled more than 3.37 million TEUs, an increase of 3.2 percent over the first half of 2018.

OOCL said in the transpacific it carried 502,507 TEUs in the second quarter of 2019, 0.6 percent fewer than in the second quarter of 2018. However, revenue in the transpacific was $622 million in the second quarter of 2019, a 6 percent improvement over the second quarter of 2018.

In the transatlantic, OOCL's revenue and liftings in the second quarter of 2019 were sharply higher than in the same period last year. The company moved 123,472 TEUs in the transatlantic trade, a 16.3 percent increase, and revenue was $154 million, a 23.9 percent increase.

OOCL reported that in the second quarter of 2019 it lifted 366,575 TEUs in the Asia-Europe trade, an increase of 9.4 percent over the same period in the prior year, while in the intra-Asia/Australasia trade, it handled 776,294 TEUs, a 4.3 percent increase.

Second-quarter revenue in the Asia-Europe trade was up 1.9 percent year-over-year to $308 million, and second-quarter revenue in the intra-Asia/Australasia trade was up 7.5 percent year-over-year to about $482 million.

OOCL Hong Kong. (Photo credit: OOCL)

Earlier this week, the 21,413-TEU OOCL Hong Kong made its maiden call to the Port of Hong Kong. The OOCL Hong Kong and her sister G-Class ships will continue to make regular calls to Hong Kong on the company's Asia-North Europe Loop 1 (LL1) service, which has a port rotation of Shanghai–Ningbo–Xiamen–Yantian–Singapore–via Suez Canal–Felixstowe– Zeebrugge–Gdansk–Wilhelmshaven–Piraeus–via Suez Canal–Port Kelang–Hong Kong–Shanghai in a 77-day round trip.

Also this week OOCL announced that because of an expectation of  low demand in the market, it was canceling several Asia-Europe sailings in August, September and October as detailed here. Companies affiliated with COSCO acquired a 75 percent interest in OOCL's parent company, Orient Overseas (International) Ltd., last year. The combined firms are ranked as having the third-largest active containership fleet in the world by Alphaliner.

Image Sourced by Pixabay