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Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) has said that average revenue per forty foot container (FEU) for its liner arm APL increased by 3 percent towards the end of last year largely due to lower bunker costs. Cargo volumes, however, fell sharply during the same period.

For the period November 15th to December 26th, APL carried worldwide volumes of 218,100 FEU, compared to 288,600 FEUs during the same period last year, which represents a 24 percent decrease.

NOL said the sharp decline towards the end of 2008 was due to the rapid fall in demand on all major trade lanes and its proactive management of capacity in order to cut costs.

The company's volume figures seemed to confirm reports that container lines had experienced a difficult end to last year as cargo demand fell sharply, causing freight rates to plummet at the start of 2009.

NOL said in a statement that the average revenue from each forty foot container during the 12th period of 2008 rose 3 percent to $2,921 from $2,834 during the same period the previous year. The company attributed this to improved bunker cost recovery.

Despite the sharp drop in business towards the end of 2008, OL’s 2008 container shipping volumes climbed 5 percent to 2,464,900 FEU from 2,357,700 FEU in 2007.

Meanwhile, average revenue per FEU rose 11 percent to $3,033, compared to $2,740 the year before.