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About to discharge the sea twice! What is the impact of Japan's nuclear sewage discharge on shipping?
Oct 07,2023
It has been a whole month since the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company forcibly started the discharge of nuclear contaminated water from Fukushima.
As of September 11, the first batch of 7788 tons of nuclear contaminated water has been discharged into the sea, which will bring huge risks to marine ecology and human health, and have a profound impact on my country's shipping industry. However, multiple media reports said that the second round of emissions is expected to start from the end of this month to early October.
Second round of nuclear contaminated water discharge to start soon
According to the latest Japanese media reports, the second round of Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharge will start from the end of September to early October as scheduled, and TEPCO is currently preparing for the second round of discharge.
According to the plan previously announced by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the total amount of nuclear contaminated water discharged in the second round is still expected to be around 7800 tons.
By the end of March next year, TEPCO will carry out a total of four rounds of discharge of nuclear contaminated water, with a total discharge of about 31200 tons, accounting for 2.3 per cent of the current total of nuclear contaminated water, equivalent to emptying about 40 storage tanks. More than 1000 other storage tanks of nuclear contaminated water, will be discharged in the future.
Some data show that 1.3 million tons of nuclear contaminated water have been stored before the official sewage discharge starts. To discharge all the nuclear contaminated water, the above operation will be recycled countless times, and the whole sewage discharge process will take at least 30 years.
With the Fukushima nuclear contaminated water discharged into the sea, Japan's aquatic products export sales seriously blocked. In Hokkaido, the main origin of scallops, the sharp decline in exports has led to a backlog of scallops and insufficient warehouse storage space.
Some merchants said that the backlog of inventory is expected to reach 5000 to 6000 tons by the end of the year. In the context of rising electricity bills in Japan, the cost of keeping businesses is also rising.
In order to reduce losses, some producing areas have begun to reduce stocks by distributing free meals for schools. In addition, a fishery group in Aomori Prefecture stated that due to the drop in sea cucumber prices, the local area will abandon the large-scale sea cucumber fishing originally scheduled for October.
Impact on the shipping industry
First, the Sino-Japanese route freight rates continued to fall. Since 2023, the CCFI Shanghai export container price index has shown a downward trend, and the freight rate of container ships from Shanghai to Japan has fluctuated.
In the first half of the year, the demand for transportation on Japanese routes remained stable, and market freight rates continued to fall. In July, the average price index for Chinese exports to Japan was 813.16 points, down 5.3 per cent on average from the previous month.
In the first half of 2023, China imported about 78.708 billion yuan of seafood, and about 2.227 billion yuan of seafood imported from Japan, accounting for about 2.83 percent.
Recently, due to Japan's discharge of nuclear sewage, most countries have adopted policies to restrict the import of Japanese seafood. The Japanese seafood import market is depressed and consumption is sluggish. It is expected that the demand for transportation from China to Japan will decrease in the future, and the container freight rate of the Shanghai-Japan route will fall. The port congestion of the Japanese route has eased.
Second, China to other countries and regional routes or usher in opportunities. In 2022, the top ten countries/regions in China's imports of aquatic products and products are Ecuador, Russia, Vietnam, India, Canada, the United States, Indonesia, Norway, Japan and New Zealand, accounting for about 74% of China's imports of this product.
After China prohibits food producers and operators from purchasing and using aquatic products originating in Japan, China's share of seafood imported from Japan may be divided up by other countries.
The Far East-North America route from China to the United States and Canada; the Far East-Europe route from China to Norway, and the Asia-South America route from China to Ecuador have certain rising potential for freight rates and rents.And China to Vietnam, India and Indonesia's small container ship feeder transport line also has the possibility of prosperity.
In addition, the inspection work in the process of container shipping also brings a greater burden. For example, the ballast water used in Japan's shipping process needs to be inspected at a greater cost in other countries, which may have a certain adverse impact on the shipping industry.
For another example, the development and utilization of marine non-living resources must also prevent nuclear pollution factors, which will lead to direct economic losses.
Finally, Japan-related routes will also be adjusted. Take Pan-Asia Shipping Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of COSCO Shipping Containers, which operates Sino-Japanese routes, as an example. It currently operates 10 container ships and 34 groups of Sino-Japanese routes.
Discharge of radioactive material makes the sea area dangerous, resulting in the accumulation of radioactive material on the surface of the ship, or will affect the safety of the ship's navigation to the point of creating special navigation rules or restrictions.
Maritime transport needs to adjust the route accordingly to avoid contaminated areas, but it will increase the distance and time of navigation, which will have a certain impact on Sino-Japanese maritime transport.
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