What containers are used for ocean freight?

What containers are used in ocean freight?
Containers come in various types and sizes. A container is a standardized, metal cargo box intended for goods transport. Containers have (almost) the same international standard dimensions worldwide and can be easily transferred from ocean vessel to train, truck or barge. Do you know which container(s) you need for your specific shipments, for a certain number of pallets or for goods with different dimensions?

Sizes and containers
TEU is the standard size of a container and stands for Twenty Feet Equivalent Unit. FEU stands for Fourty Feet Equivalent Unit. Sizes within containers are almost always expressed in TEUs. So a TEU is equivalent to 20 feet, just over 6 meters. The most common shipping containers are expressed as 1 (a 20 ft, twenty-foot unit) or 2 TEU (40 ft, forty-foot unit). There are, of course, exceptions. In the menu you will find the most common sizes for containers. For completeness, this document includes all container variants and their corresponding dimensions.

Typically, a container is:

• 20 feet (approximately 6 meters = 1 TEU);
• 40 feet (2 TEU = 1 FEU).

With ocean freight offices in Rotterdam and Antwerp, Rotra has a worldwide network with locally specialized agents. In addition to attractive pricing, we ship shipments end-to-end under our own management where we also provide pre- and on-carriage. Would you like further information from 1 of our sea freight branch specialists? Please contact.