Aerial view of Dundalk Marine Terminal in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 3, 2024.
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Shares of European shipping companies fell as U.S. port strikes ended, with Moller-Maersk shares down more than 8% at the open on Friday.
A major U.S. longshoremen union and the American Maritime Alliance brokered a tentative agreement on wages on Thursday and extended the existing contract until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new deal.
A prolonged strike would help European shippers capture a greater share of global supply chain demand.
As of 1:35 pm London time, Maersk's share price narrowed its losses slightly, falling 5.06%.
German lloyd table down 13.26%. Swiss Logistics Company Kuehne+Nagel Also down 1.48%.
Previously, Japanese shippers' stock prices fell on Friday, with Nippon Yusen Line and Kawasaki Kisen falling 9.48% and 9.65% respectively. South Korea's Pan Ocean fell 4.77%, HMM fell 5.06%, and Taiwan's Yang Ming Shipping fell 9.08%.
Thursday's agreement ends a strike at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports that has been underway since the start of the week and threatened supplies of U.S. goods such as fruit, medicine and cars.
Even during the brief strike, U.S. supply chains suffered significant disruptions, with billions of dollars of goods stranded overseas ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.
Hapag-Lloyd said on Friday it could take about three to four weeks to clear the backlog of ships at U.S. ports.
Ahead of Thursday's talks, analysts at TD Securities warned in a note that any disruption lasting longer than a week “will create greater challenges and be extremely disruptive to the entire supply chain.”
The strike, the first by the International Longshoremen's Association in nearly 50 years, affected operations at 14 ports and involved about 50,000 of the union's 85,000 members.
— CNBC's Ganesh Rao contributed to this report.