In the first article of issue 577 of the Sunday Spotlight, we looked at the development of nominal vessel utilization, as this is a key parameter in gauging the strength of the market. Even though demand grew by 0.6% Y/Y in June, it doesn’t change the fact that it has been on a downwards trend ever since it spiked in peak season 2020. The more pertinent question therefore, is how demand growth matches up against deployed capacity. A declining demand trend can be offset by a declining injection of capacity, especially in an environment where port congestion leads to significant vessel delays, and in turn results in capacity removal. (....)