HONG KONG's OOIL, the parent company of container carrier OOCL, has announced its performance for second quarter of 2011, seeing a 1.4 per cent year-on-year increase of total revenue to US$1.4 billion with 6.5 per cent growth in cargo volumes.
For the first six months, the company's volumes increased 9.4 per cent year on year and total revenues grew 8.5 per cent. Loadable capacity was up 17.6 per cent, but the overall load factor was 5.7 per cent lower than the same period of 2010 and overall average revenue per TEU also fell 0.9 year on year.
Looking ahead, the carrier said the "outlook for the full year is disappointing". Though demand is expected to see "an overall year-on-year increase in liftings", freight rates on east-west trades have continued to drop in the second quarter, particularly on the Asia-Europe trades.
However, it said the bunker prices and other energy-related costs have increased significantly in 2011, implying the margins will get thinner in the rest of the year.