SHIPPER BRIEFING
Ocean Freight Market Conditions
Fuel is now the whole story. Diesel has hit the highest level in the EIA's records, marine bunker keeps climbing, and the charges built on top of both are still going up. Here's what to plan October against.
Last updated: September 21, 2026
Updated monthly, and sooner after major market events.
Previous briefing: September 2026 briefing
WHERE THINGS STAND
The short version
Fuel has stopped being one line on the invoice and become the thing that sets the invoice. U.S. on-highway diesel has climbed every week since mid-August and now stands at the highest level in the EIA’s weekly series, which goes back to 1994. Marine bunker has moved the same way. Everything built on top of fuel — emergency fuel surcharges, inland fuel charges, drayage — is moving with it.
Three things to plan October around: an emergency fuel step-up takes effect on October 1, capacity thins for two back-to-back Chinese holidays, and a tariff exclusion deadline lands on November 9 that will catch some importers by surprise.
WHY THIS IS HAPPENING
Fuel, and not much else
Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has run since late February and has not eased. In mid-September the main pipeline route that bypasses the strait went out of service, removing the workaround that had been absorbing part of the pressure. Carriers report they can still get fuel, but availability varies by grade and by hub, and the price of it keeps rising.
That feeds two separate numbers on your invoice. The ocean side moves through bunker mechanisms and emergency fuel surcharges. The inland side moves through diesel-linked fuel charges on drayage and rail. For export cargo running several hundred miles to the gateway, the inland number can move more in a month than the ocean number does.
Refining capacity remains tight, which is why diesel and bunker stay high even in weeks when crude slips. That is the mechanism to watch — not the crude headline.
READ YOUR INVOICE RIGHT
What changes on October 1
At least one major carrier has published replacement emergency fuel levels effective October 1, and the head-haul level goes up rather than down. Worth being precise about what that is: it is an event-driven surcharge replacement that runs until further notice, not a scheduled quarterly reset. Other carriers review these on their own rolling cycles, some as often as every two weeks, so expect the rest of the market to move at different times rather than all on the same date.
Two charges already in force carry into October. Panama Canal transit surcharges went on through August and September and have not been withdrawn. Inland congestion surcharges for cargo routed via the North Sea ports began in September, phased by cargo type — the tranche covering FMC-regulated shipments took effect on September 20, so it lands on October invoices for the first time.
One qualifier that always applies: ocean and inland surcharges are separate line items, and levels vary by lane, equipment type and contract terms. Contact us for current levels on your specific lanes.
ONE MARKET, TWO DIRECTIONS
Don’t read the headline index
The global composite rate index has been effectively flat for three weeks. That number is hiding the actual market. Transpacific spot rates have risen for seven consecutive weeks and are now approaching their pandemic-era peaks, while Asia–Europe has fallen over the same period. A briefing that quotes the composite alone will tell you nothing useful about either lane.
Part of the Asia–Europe softening is a routing change. Carriers have begun moving selected services back to the Suez Canal and Red Sea corridor after an extended period routing around the Cape of Good Hope. This is a partial return, not a market-wide one — roughly a quarter of Asia–Europe capacity is on the Suez routing, and carriers state it stays conditional on regional stability. Mediterranean services have moved back faster than North Europe ones.
The practical consequence is that transit assumptions built on Cape routing may now be wrong in either direction, and the same port pair can differ by carrier and by sailing. Confirm routing per sailing rather than per service.
THE CAPACITY CALENDAR
Two holidays, three working days between them
Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 25 to 27 and National Day Golden Week runs October 1 to 7, with only three working days in between. The practical slowdown at origin is longer than either holiday on its own, and it starts before the first one as factories push to finish.
Carriers have responded by pulling sailings. Cancelled sailings across the major East–West trades now run at roughly one in nine of those scheduled for the next five weeks, up from about one in sixteen at the start of September. The concentration is on the transpacific, which is also where rates are climbing — less space and firmer pricing at the same time.
If your cargo needs to move around the holidays, the booking decision is already late rather than early. Blanked sailings do not show as a cancellation on your booking; they show as a roll.
ON THE HORIZON
A tariff deadline on November 9
The current Section 301 product exclusions expire at the end of the day on November 9, 2026. Read that precisely, because it is widely misreported: the Section 301 tariffs themselves are not expiring. What lapses is the set of product-specific exclusions that let certain goods enter without the additional duty. Entries filed on or after November 10 pay the underlying list rate unless the exclusions are extended again.
If any of your imports currently clear under an exclusion, the thing to confirm now is whether your specific classification is on the expiring list and what the duty becomes if nothing changes. That is a question for your customs broker, and it is better asked in October than in the second week of November. We coordinate customs clearance through a licensed broker partner and can make the introduction.
IN PRACTICE
What this means for your freight
- Budget Q4 on fuel at or above where it is now. The early-summer easing is long gone and nothing in the current picture points down. Plan the quarter on current levels, not on a reversion.
- Price the inland leg as carefully as the ocean leg. With diesel at record levels, the drayage and rail fuel components are where a door-to-door quote moves most — especially on long inland runs to the gateway.
- Book around the holidays now, not in late September.With roughly one in nine East–West sailings blanked, the risk is not a cancelled booking, it is a rolled one.
- Ask which routing your Asia–Europe sailing actually takes. Suez and Cape are both in use right now, and the transit difference is substantial. Service-level assumptions are not reliable this quarter.
- Check your exclusions before November. If a classification you import under loses its exclusion on November 9, the landed cost changes overnight. Confirm it with your broker in October.
- Compare all-in, not line by line. When a charge moves into a standard mechanism the total can hold while the line item vanishes — the Surcharge Decoder covers how to compare properly.
WHAT WOULD CHANGE IT
What would bring surcharges down
The same signals as the last two briefings. None of them has turned, and the pipeline outage in mid-September moved the first one further away:
- Sustained normalization of Strait of Hormuz traffic and of the bypass routes around it.
- Marine bunker and diesel holding lower for several weeks, not days.
- Recovery in Middle East refinery output.
Carriers have cut these charges before, in June and early July, so the mechanism works in both directions. Treat emergency fuel surcharges as a variable cost that is staying this quarter.
HOW WE WORK IT
Tracked carrier by carrier, booking by booking
We don’t manage this market from headlines. Surcharge changes are tracked carrier by carrier on every booking we handle — which charges moved on October 1, which moved into a standard fuel mechanism, which routing a given sailing is actually taking, and what each carrier’s current levels are on your lane. Quotes go out all-in, with every line itemized, so the number you book against ocean freight is the number you pay.
Based on published carrier customer advisories, Panama Canal Authority advisories to shipping, U.S. EIA weekly on-highway diesel data through the week of September 14, 2026, Drewry World Container Index and cancelled-sailings data through September 18, 2026, and the USTR Federal Register notice on Section 301 exclusions. Covers the period through September 20, 2026. Carrier surcharges change with limited notice.
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