The following is the second part of our feature on USE OF CONTAINERS IN
SHIPPING. Part III follows next week.
COSTS OF CONTAINERS TO
SHIPPING COMPANIES
CONTAINERS ARE made of tough, rigid, watertight material that will be reused time and time again; containers must be durable and secure. They will also contain special equipment to handle fragile & perishable cargo, such as refrigeration equipment on reefers. As such they are not cheap and can cost between US$ 10,000 and US$ 80,000 each. Although containers are hardy and durable they do need continual preventative maintenance to ensure reliable, trouble free shipping.
The shipping line can only recover these costs over a period of time so that high and regular container usage is essential to make container purchase a commercially viable proposition. Idle container time does nothing to recover the expenditure of purchasing the container nor does it reduce the need and cost of leasing containers to ensure adequate numbers of stock for the exporters.
RECOVERING COSTS
Shipping companies charge importers for 'freight', i.e. the cost to transport goods. This cost will vary with the size and type of the container as well as the route that the container takes.
In addition to freight, the Shipping Company will charge for the period between when the full container is unloaded and when the empty container is returned to the wharf; these charges are called 'demurrage' and 'detention'.
