Fuel surcharges for international air express shipments continued to fall in September with the exception of the DHL and TNT surcharges in the USA that remained unchanged this month, CEP-Research analysis has shown.
In Europe, all the integrators reduced their surcharges this month. The UPS surcharge fell to 11% in September, down from 11.75% last month. The FedEx European surcharge also decreased from 11.5% in August to 10.5% this month. DHL’s European surcharge fell by 1.5 percentage points in August to 11% this month. TNT reduced its European surcharge slightly to 14.25% in August, down from 15% last month.
In the USA, DHL Express again left its surcharge unchanged at the exceptional 0% level, for the eighth month in a row. The FedEx surcharge dropped further to 2% for the period of Sept. 7 – Oct. 4, down from 3% in August. The UPS surcharge also fell from 4.75% last month to 3.75% in September. The TNT surcharge in the USA remained unchanged at 5% this month.
In Asia Pacific, all the four integrators reduced their surcharges as well. The FedEx surcharge went down from 10.5% in August to 8.5% this month. The UPS surcharge which was at the 10.5% level last month went down by 1.5 percentage points to 9% in September. The DHL surcharge also decreased from 12.5% to 11% this month, in the same way as the company’s surcharge in Europe. TNT’s Asian surcharge slightly dropped from 14.75% last month to 14.25% in September.
Global oil prices showed a rather downward trend in the first half of August but went up again at the end of the month. WTI crude traded at $46.45, compared to nearly $46 a month ago thus coming back to the same level. Similarly, Brent crude which also experienced a downward trend in the beginning and an upward trend at the end of August, traded at $50.50 this morning, rising up to the same level as $49.99 a month ago. These figures remain extremely low compared to July 2014 when Brent crude traded at $115 and WTI crude above $103.
Yesterday, oil prices reversed intraday losses and settled higher despite a government report that showed US commercial crude oil inventories rose by a higher-than-expected 4.67 million barrels last week. The turnaround came after the Federal Reserve revealed that the US economy grew a bit more slowly from early July to mid-August, which could influence the central bank's decision on whether to increase interest rates this month. The results reinforced the sharp volatility that has marked recent oil market trading, according to media reports.
The inventory increase, the largest since April, boosted stockpiles to 455.4 million barrels. Such supply levels haven’t been seen at this time of the year in at least the last eight decades, the US Energy Information Administration report said. The increase far surpassed the roughly 100,000-barrel jump that had been forecast by financial analysts.
The air express fuel surcharges for September reflect the respective oil price levels two months ago. The four integrators calculate their surcharges based on indices showing the previous month’s oil price level and announce them in advance for the following month. This results in a two-month time lag between the fuel price and surcharge change.
