36% of 2026 ocean contracts run a year or longer — highest in six years

Six years of shocks have not killed the annual contract. In fact, 36% of ocean contracts signed in 2026 run 12 months or longer, up from 27% in 2020 and the highest share in six years — the headline data point from day one of the tenth Xeneta Summit in Munich, where 600 shippers, forwarders, carriers and airlines gathered for two days of talking rather than negotiating.

Xeneta founder Patrik Berglund opened by recalling the Summit's origin: a few people who believed the industry deserved one set of facts. The platform now holds 850 million ocean rates across 170,000 port pairs, adds 16 million each month, covers 25,000 airport pairs and 17 million tonnes a year in air cargo, and tracks 6,500 vessels against 1,700 liner schedules.

What do buyers actually want?

Predictability, not price. Xeneta CRO Tanguy Caillet reported that of 45 core questions captured in peer-to-peer roundtables with 40 customers across six cities, three quarters concerned predictability and only a quarter price. One procurement lead put it plainly: "We spend half the year building the budget, and the other half defending it."

A closing panel with Bjorn Vang Jensen, Arcadio Martinez (DSV) and Michael Aldwell (Kuehne+Nagel) reframed the "is the long-term contract dead" question. Aldwell located the problem in forecasting: most customers mis-forecast 2026, some by 15% to 40%, and index-linked terms give both sides a transparent way to handle the overflow. Martinez described the working split — fix predictable volume, put the volatile part on an index with a collar — so finance still gets a budgetable number. Asked whether forwarders survive another decade, Aldwell called forwarding a problem-solving industry in a market where problems are multiplying; Martinez pointed to the 18 companies involved in moving one container.

Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen argued the fixed twelve-month rate no longer fits six years of volatility: agree scenarios upfront. "Any long-term partnership where the economic benefits are very unbalanced over time will break, no matter how much trust you have." Shipper-side, Alejandro Parodi of Bekaert answered: "Trust matters, but trust without measurable reciprocal commitments is not a commercial model."

The year the budget broke

Xeneta's analysts, Erik Devetak and Tobias Vernon, predicted a softer 2026 — and were right for eight weeks, as Far East spot rates fell weekly until 27 February. Then the Middle East war closed the Strait of Hormuz. Spot rates rose on every Far East lane: roughly 60% at the low end, 540% into the Gulf. Far East–US rates now sit at more than five times their February level; Europe has pulled back while the US has not. The two markets have stopped moving together.

Three findings stood out:

• Fuel surcharges rose 72% to 89% while bunker prices stayed flat from April — surcharges now follow supply and demand, not fuel.
• Jebel Ali dropped from 459,000 scheduled TEU a week to 12,000; neighbours absorbed 38% of the loss and 62% vanished from the Gulf entirely.
• Middle East reliability fell from 23% on time in December to 12% in October; the April rebound to 27% came only because carriers cancelled 36% of planned capacity. A smaller schedule is not a better one.

Typhoons compounded the pain: Far East–Europe hit 5% on-time in October with 9.5 days average delay, a 12-month low. One bright spot: Red Sea scheduled capacity reached 467,297 TEU a week on 21 October, half the pre-crisis level, though Suez sailings saved just 3.3 days end-to-end because vessels left Shanghai 12.5 days late.

Vernon's verdict on market behaviour: "The more a delay costs you, the less you can push the market, and the more you pay. In a tight market, that gets amplified." Contracts shortened, forwarders priced above market as carriers squeezed allocations, the largest shippers won the sharpest rates, and pharma and automotive paid up.

Trade is rerouting, not retreating

Peter Sand and Jacob Moe opened the macro session with lopsided growth: global container demand up 5% year to date, Asian exports up 9%, Far East westbound headhaul up 11% while backhaul stood still. North American imports fell 1.9 million TEU in 2025; European imports rose 1.2 million TEU in 2026. Fleet growth of 4% meets 3.8 million TEU stuck in congested ports, with roughly 20% of effective capacity lost to congestion and diversions.

Habben Jansen explained why diversification means more shipping: a shipment once moving Shanghai to Los Angeles now sends components to Thailand for assembly and on via Singapore — two or three moves instead of one. Khawla Abdullah of Emirates SkyCargo noted EU e-commerce imports fell 47% in August 2026 versus June, with air capacity redeployed to North America and Asia Pacific, and flagged the carrier's AI Tech product among its 12-month priorities.

Can data kill the spreadsheet?

Flexport's Ryan Petersen opened with a duct-taped typewriter at Jakarta airport and argued freight should "be called freight email forwarding at this point." His math: the waste around the freight bill runs to roughly $2 trillion a year — $1.2 trillion in stock-out lost sales, $600 billion in written-off inventory, $100 billion in containers shipped 70% full, half of all air freight booked unplanned. The entire SaaS industry earns about $500 billion.

CPO Fabio Brocca announced Ocean Schedules with transshipment, four Asian airlines adding 3 million tonnes of air visibility, AI agents with an MCP connector into Copilot or ChatGPT, AI rate-sheet standardisation, and Xeneta Tender — a 92-day tender run benchmarked at every step, with five customers live this quarter and launch in January 2027. "The decisions stay yours," Brocca said. "What disappears is the spreadsheet and effort that stood between you and them."

On AI, Habben Jansen was candid: Hapag-Lloyd applies it to empty repositioning, equipment and some pricing, but "the number of real decisions being made by AI is still quite limited." Petersen's counter: the limit was inputs, not intelligence — feed consolidation maths live data and Flexport saw a 14% reduction in freight shipped. Xeneta's new agents already compare contracted rates against market and peers: a chemicals company took a flagged rate into negotiation and came out $252 a container lower; a Canadian manufacturer reviewed its full portfolio in minutes rather than days.

Day two brings the 2027 ocean and air outlook — with the tender season, and the 36% question, waiting behind it.