For a 20ft or 40ft container, you would expect to see terminal handling charges say of around £150.  One container can hold 23 tonnes of cargo and a 40ft ‘High Cube’ has a capacity of 65 M3.

And yet part loads (many importers sharing one container, which reduces freight charges) can cost much more in UK terminals.  Why is that?  Mainly because the weight or cubic metres are too high.

Getting towards 4 M3 and 4000 kgs the terminals will start to match a full load (circa £150) but the part loads have a rate that has no ceiling on it, so if they are charging £43 per weight/measure (this means per tonne or per 1 M3) then 4 M3 or 4 tonnes will be £43 x 4 is £172.00, which is already more than a full load rate.  I have known parts loads to have 10 M3 of cargo (that’s £430 terminal handling costs!)

But of course you have to balance this against how much freight you saved by shipping the cargo as a part load, as the freight for an FCL would understandably be higher.

Full load containers have a set (capped) limit on UK terminals and part loads have a rate per tonne/M3 (which is uncapped) and this is why they can end of costing more.