A year ago, shipping experts unveiled their projections for 2020. Little did they know how short their forecasts’ shelf lives would be. Pre-COVID outlooks were practically worthless by February.
The pandemic reshaped cargo demand across all shipping segments, but for two in particular: container shipping and tanker shipping.
In both cases, COVID had a violent effect on demand — up then down for tankers, down then up for containers. And in both cases, initial expectations on rate effects were wrong.