The shipping company OOCL, which belongs to the Chinese state-owned group Cosco, has increased its turnover with more cargo, but has nevertheless suffered a drop in profits.
After the first six months of the year, the container transportation division reported EBIT of US$878m. With an EBIT margin of around 18.9%, this figure is below that of 2023, when it was $1.13 billion.
The shipping company transported around 3.7 million TEU, around 2% more than in the same period of the previous year. Income from the liner business rose by the same amount to US$4.64bn.
The company is rewarding its shareholders: the dividend for the first half of 2024 amounts to around 50% of the profit attributable to shareholders of US$416m, which corresponds to US$0.63 per ordinary share.
Detour around South Africa is expensive for OOCL
Good for the balance sheet: the average bunker price also fell from 609 $/t to 589 $/t. Nevertheless, bunker costs at OOCL rose by around 13%. This is due to the rerouting of ships around South Africa in response to the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Overall, more fuel is consumed on the significantly longer route.
OOCL, based in Hong Kong, is part of Cosco (China) and a member of the “Ocean Alliance” with CMA CGM (France) and Evergreen (Taiwan). The industry service Alphaliner ranks the Chinese company in fourth place in the global liner ranking with 3.25 million TEU and a good 500 ships.
In the first half of the year, a further five Megamax freighters with a capacity of 24,188 TEU were put into service. The ships were built by DACKS and NACKS in China. A further newbuilding, which will be the last, is due to join the fleet in the third quarter.
