SIMIC

OOIL, parent of Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), reported a doubling of net profit to a record US$5.7 billion in the first six months of 2022 compared with $2.8 billion a year earlier. Revenue for the half-year surged 52 per cent to $11 billion.

The surge in financials was driven by elevated rate levels and came despite total liftings falling 7 per cent to 3.6 million TEU, report IHS Media.

OOIL is a Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of Cosco Shipping Holdings, which is due to announce its interim results on August 30.

"Our ships are sailing full on our main long-haul trade lanes and are forecast to continue to be fully loaded in the coming weeks," Mr Wan said in a statement accompanying the results announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

"[But] there has not been much evidence, so far, of the kind of significant seasonal uptick that is often a feature of the traditional trans-Pacific peak season."

Indeed, the peak season for holiday goods headed into the US market has been slow. US containerised imports from Asia grew only 2.2 per cent in the May-July period from the February-April period of this year.

While that is similar to last year's growth of 2.4 per cent, it is a much slower pace of growth compared to the same months in 2017 (16.6 per cent), 2018 (17.7 per cent), and 2019 (19.4 per cent), according to PIERS.

Mr Wan pointed out that while consumers are still purchasing new goods, they are not necessarily the same products bought last year so there has not been a complete return to pre-pandemic patterns of spending. "Even if US retail inventory-to-sales ratios remain low, we note some year-on-year increases in absolute levels of US inventory," he said.

Revenues on all of OOCL's major trades - the trans-Pacific, Asia-Europe, intra-Asia, and trans-Atlantic - soared on the back of the cargo demand-vessel supply imbalance.

The trans-Pacific remained OOCL's biggest revenue earner, generating $3.9 billion in the first half, up 78 per cent year on year despite liftings falling 14 per cent to 951,611 TEU.