The cost of shipping and freight is expected to remain high over the next year because of the impact of logistic complexities to every part of the supply chain.

It is one of the challenges the shipping industry continues to face, Blue Waters Shipping (Trinidad) general manager Nooriana Seerattan said in an interview with Business Day.

She explained the operations, cost, and opportunities the company and the industry has had over the past two years.

The covid19 pandemic and now the Russia-Ukraine conflict has disrupted the freight and supply chains in multiple ways ­– from sanctions to higher fuel costs to higher shipping and freight costs.

Seerattan said no country was spared from the fallout of these events and small developing countries were the hardest hit.

“From what we see from the trends and forecasts, prices should remain this way throughout 2022. We still have a shortage of workers and congested ports throughout the world.

“The repercussions are massive at this time, and it is going to take some time for that to rectify itself. I suspect we will see some type of optimisation in 2022 but a more realistic time frame for price improvements could be in the second quarter of 2023,” she said.

Project manager Segrio Carter pointed out that the pandemic created a backlog for all sectors which has led to a domino effect and bottle neck at the ports for incoming and outgoing containers, which led to the increased costs.

“There are less containers now available for the utilisation for the transportation of materials and goods. Hence the reason things are being slowed down somewhat.

[caption id="attachment_961208" align="alignnone" width="800"] Blue Water Shipping plans to expand its operations in the Caribbean and Latin America. -[/caption]

“Pre-pandemic days it was about $3,000 per container now its $15,000 to $20,000. We are also seeing people trying to consolidate their purchases because of the congested ports and the costs,” he said.

Blue Water Shipping is a Danish company with offices in 60 countries and began operations in TT in 2020. Its office is in Albion Plaza, Port of Spain and operations in Suriname are done remotely. There is also an office in Guyana with plans to expand in the Caribbean region and Latin America.

Blue Water Shipping services include but are not limited to sea and air freight; oil, gas and industrial projects; port services; marine and reefer logistics; transportation services; and cargo insurance. The company will celebrate its 50th anniversary in September.

Seerattan said the company was able to set up easily in TT as its planning was done pre-pandemic and its main line of business done within the oil and gas sector.

“The decision to come to TT was done right before the pandemic so it was quite easy to set up. All the contracts, acquisition, the teams, the actual base of operations were decided before the shutdown.

“Luckily in TT because of its oil and gas related we did not have a day off as the ports were in constant operations. Of course, there was redu