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Platts Containers Update

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Slack U.S. import demand and too much vessel capacity undermined most of the general rate increase that container carriers implemented on Jan. 15, sending average spot freight rates in the eastbound trans-Pacific trade down this week, the third consecutive week of decline.</div>

Slack U.S. import demand and too much vessel capacity undermined most of the general rate increase that container carriers implemented on Jan. 15, sending average spot freight rates in the eastbound trans-Pacific trade down this week, the third consecutive week of decline.

<div><div><img></div>Slack U.S. import demand and too much vessel capacity undermined most of the general rate increase that container carriers implemented on Jan. 15, sending average spot freight rates in the eastbound trans-Pacific trade down this week, the third consecutive week of decline.Carrier members of the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement are already planning more GRIs in the trans-Pacific, but the sheer volume of new vessel capacity that is due for delivery this year is likely to make it difficult for them to hang onto those increases unless U.S. import demand picks up more than forecast or carriers can limit capacity growth in...

Slack U.S. import demand and too much vessel capacity undermined most of the general rate increase that container carriers implemented on Jan. 15, sending average spot freight rates in the eastbound trans-Pacific trade down this week, the third consecutive week of decline. Carrier members of the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement are already planning more GRIs in the trans-Pacific, but the sheer volume of new vessel capacity that is due for delivery this year is likely to make it difficult for them to hang onto those increases unless U.S. import demand picks up more than forecast or carriers can limit capacity growth in the trade. Drewry’s Hong Kong-to-Los Angeles Container Rate Benchmark declined to $2,260 per 40-foot-equivalent unit this week , down 1.6 percent from last week, and down 10.5 percent , or $264 per FEU, from Jan. 15, when carriers implemented a general rate increase of $600 per FEU recommended by the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement. After the Jan. 15 GRI, carriers succeeded in holding onto about half of that increase, as the Drewry benchmark leveled off at $2,524 per FEU for a couple of weeks before dropping for the last three weeks during and after the Chinese New Year holiday, from Feb. 10-16 when factories closed down. After this week’s decline, the Drewry benchmark is only 2.1 percent or $47 per FEU higher than the benchmark rate of $2,213 prevailing at the beginning of the year. Carriers have tried to mitigate vessel overcapacity by canceling sailings to the U.S. West Coast during the slack winter season. “February saw a huge move toward canceled or skipped voyages, when carriers aren’t operating with their full complement of ships,” said Simon Heaney, research manager at Drewry. Carriers skipped 36 voyages in the Asia-U.S. East Coast trade during February, which reduced capacity by 10 percent, or about 100,000 TEUs for the month. “The impact on freight rates was beneficial, but since then it has waned.” The rate of vessel utilization in the trade, which averaged 91 to 92 percent in January, came down to around 80 percent in February. “It would have been a lot worse had they not canceled those port calls,” Heaney said. Complete coverage of trans-Pacific maritime trade Carriers will have a difficult time limiting the increase in vessel capacity in the trans-Pacific trade this year because of the number of large new container ships that are scheduled for delivery and deployment in the Asia-Europe trade, which will, in turn, cause carriers to cascade smaller tonnage into other trades. As a result, there is likely to be too much vessel space chasing too little demand in the trans-Pacific. “Demand for vessel capacity on the trans-Pacific is expected to increase by 2.1 percent this year,” Alphaliner executive Consultant Tan Hua Joo told The Journal of Commerce’s 13th annual TPM Conference in Long Beach last week. He estimated that vessel capacity on that route would increase 6 percent because of the cascading of tonnage that is being replaced by new vessels deployed in the Asia-Europe trade. New services and vessel upsizing have already added 9 percent to trans-Pacific capacity this year. Tan said the capacity overhang would continue to dictate the freight rate cycle through 2013. He predicted there would be more GRI announcements through the year, but that the “GRI success rate will be lower than 2012.” The next test of TSA carriers’ ability to nail down rate increases will come on April 1, when they will seek a GRI of $400 per FEU for shipments from Asia to West Coast ports and $600 per FEU to all other destinations. The April 1 GRI is designed to set the stage for the negotiations for annual freight rate contracts in the trans-Pacific, which usually start on May 1. Contact Peter Leach at pleach@joc.com and follow him at twitter.com/petertleach .

Overcapacity Pressures Rates in Trans-Pacific

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The forwarder reported solid results to close 2024 as unknowns linked to US longshore labor, tariff policy and changes to de minimis rules fueled trans-Pacific freight demand. </div>

The forwarder reported solid results to close 2024 as unknowns linked to US longshore labor, tariff policy and changes to de minimis rules fueled trans-Pacific freight demand.

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<div class="phx-topic">Frontloading of air and ocean cargo pushed earnings higher for Expeditors International during the fourth quarter as a litany of uncertainties from port labor to tariffs to geopolitics prodded shippers to move their freight as quickly as possible. The trans-Pacific forwarder reported Q4 2024 earnings of $1.68 per share, up 54% from a year ago and well above the $1.43 S&amp;P Capital IQ consensus estimate. Revenue for the quarter was up 30% to $2.95 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $2.8 billion. Expeditors Chief Executive Jeffrey Musser said in a statement Tuesday the results were driven by “strong demand from Asia, along with heavy de minimis-driven e-commerce business and increased demand for technology products” that helped drive an 11% year-on-year gain in air freight kilos during the fourth quarter. Musser said Expeditors moved its most air freight since the end of 2021. The company’s air segment saw revenue rise 22% year over year in the fourth quarter to just over $1 billion. The forwarder’s ocean freight volumes increased 14% during the quarter, with segment revenue rising 77% year over year to $908 million. Along with higher volumes, Musser said Expeditors was able to capitalize on the spread between its contract rates with ocean carriers and rates shippers paid to move freight during the quarter. “Strong demand generally for ocean transportation combined with longer transit times and capacity issues caused by the disruptions in the Red Sea resulted in significant increases in overall average buy and sell rates and growth in volumes,” Musser said. The knock-on effect of higher volumes across air and ocean freight also drove a 9% revenue increase in Expeditors’ customs brokerage and related services business. Musser said it was unclear whether the market volatility will ease given the uncertainty about US polices on de minimis shipments, new tariffs from the Trump administration and whether ocean carriers will resume Red Sea transits anytime soon. He added that “geopolitical words and actions are driving disruption at a faster pace than we can ever recall, and national policies regarding tariffs and other similar measures are highly unclear in many countries around the globe.” Separately, Musser announced that he will step down from the chief executive role in March and be replaced by Daniel Wall, Expeditors’ president of global geographies.   Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a></div>

Frontloading of air and ocean cargo pushed earnings higher for Expeditors International during the fourth quarter as a litany of uncertainties from port labor to tariffs to geopolitics prodded shippers to move their freight as quickly as possible. The trans-Pacific forwarder reported Q4 2024 earnings of $1.68 per share, up 54% from a year ago and well above the $1.43 S&P Capital IQ consensus estimate. Revenue for the quarter was up 30% to $2.95 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $2.8 billion. Expeditors Chief Executive Jeffrey Musser said in a statement Tuesday the results were driven by “strong demand from Asia, along with heavy de minimis-driven e-commerce business and increased demand for technology products” that helped drive an 11% year-on-year gain in air freight kilos during the fourth quarter. Musser said Expeditors moved its most air freight since the end of 2021. The company’s air segment saw revenue rise 22% year over year in the fourth quarter to just over $1 billion. The forwarder’s ocean freight volumes increased 14% during the quarter, with segment revenue rising 77% year over year to $908 million. Along with higher volumes, Musser said Expeditors was able to capitalize on the spread between its contract rates with ocean carriers and rates shippers paid to move freight during the quarter. “Strong demand generally for ocean transportation combined with longer transit times and capacity issues caused by the disruptions in the Red Sea resulted in significant increases in overall average buy and sell rates and growth in volumes,” Musser said. The knock-on effect of higher volumes across air and ocean freight also drove a 9% revenue increase in Expeditors’ customs brokerage and related services business. Musser said it was unclear whether the market volatility will ease given the uncertainty about US polices on de minimis shipments, new tariffs from the Trump administration and whether ocean carriers will resume Red Sea transits anytime soon. He added that “geopolitical words and actions are driving disruption at a faster pace than we can ever recall, and national policies regarding tariffs and other similar measures are highly unclear in many countries around the globe.” Separately, Musser announced that he will step down from the chief executive role in March and be replaced by Daniel Wall, Expeditors’ president of global geographies.   Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com

String of market uncertainties helped drive strong Q4 for Expeditors

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The threat dynamic in the Houthi-controlled area remains too high for ocean carriers to consider ending diversions around southern Africa, and higher insurance costs likely await when they do. </div>

The threat dynamic in the Houthi-controlled area remains too high for ocean carriers to consider ending diversions around southern Africa, and higher insurance costs likely await when they do.

<div class="phx-topic">Ocean carriers will require “a full and permanent” ceasefire between Israel and Hamas before they are confident enough to shift services back to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, according to marine management company Inchcape Shipping Services. And the unstable situation that currently prevails in the region does not suggest an end to the vessel diversions around southern Africa anytime soon, Chris Greenwood, vice president of survey and inspection at Inchcape, said Wednesday. “There remains no clear timeline on when the ceasefire will be solidified to the point that container lines will regain the confidence to resume transiting the Red Sea,” Greenwood told a webinar hosted by security risk management firm Ambrey. Despite <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/carriers-eye-red-sea-transits-after-houthi-rebels-pledge-restraint-5925939">recent pledges by the Hamas-supporting Houthi militants</a> that attacks will now be limited to ships affiliated with Israel, Greenwood was not convinced. “It will be a full and permanent ceasefire in Gaza that will make a Red Sea return possible, but it is a very unstable and uncertain environment with a lot of peripheral geopolitical issues going on,” he noted. “The threat dynamic is very uncertain and the confidence among our clients [to reroute ships via the Red Sea] is not there yet,” Greenwood added. Attacks on commercial shipping by Houthi militants at the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow waterway at the southern end of the Red Sea between Yemen and Djibouti, have forced most ocean carriers to divert around southern Africa for the past 15 months. The diversions have added up to two weeks to Asia-Europe voyages, kept rates elevated, and in 2024 increased TEU miles by 17%. A return to the Red Sea and Suez by ocean carriers will depend on both Israel and Hamas meeting the conditions agreed to in the ceasefire, the individual risk tolerance of each container shipping company and the willingness of insurance companies to underwrite vessels making the voyages. <h3>Rising cost of insurance </h3>Before the Red Sea attacks began in November 2023, insurance for one-way transits was about 0.05% of the value of a ship, but that has doubled to approximately 1%, Greenwood said. That means a vessel valued at $100 million would have an insurance cost of $1 million for a single passage. “The P&amp;I clubs [protection and indemnity insurers] are taking a wait-and-see approach, but the underwriters, especially the lead underwriters, are likely to require material changes before lowering their premiums significantly,” said Greenwood. While making no mention of the insurance challenges, several ocean carrier executives have made it clear that they will only send ships through the Red Sea, “when it is safe to do so.” Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said during his carrier’s 2024 annual earnings call earlier this month that Maersk’s resumption of Red Sea voyages would revolve around <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/maersks-profitability-in-2025-hinges-on-return-to-red-sea-clerc-5939261">a guarantee of safe passage for seamen, ships and cargo</a>. “You need to look at the situation on the ground and say, ‘the Houthis [are] either no longer capable or whatever gives them the willingness to attack is no longer,’” Clerc said. CMA CGM, however, appears to be taking a more relaxed approach to regional security concerns with certain services. The carrier this week announced a new service from India to ports along the Red Sea that passes through the Houthi-controlled Bab al-Mandab Strait using three vessels operated jointly by Saudi-based Folk Maritime and Oman-based Asyad Shipping. Another service passing through the Red Sea and Suez is <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/suez-routing-allows-rapid-transit-of-new-expedited-china-europe-service-5930379">Kawa Shipping’s new China-Europe Express</a>, which suggests the Chinese carrier has no fear of attacks by Houthi militants. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Ocean carriers will require “a full and permanent” ceasefire between Israel and Hamas before they are confident enough to shift services back to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, according to marine management company Inchcape Shipping Services. And the unstable situation that currently prevails in the region does not suggest an end to the vessel diversions around southern Africa anytime soon, Chris Greenwood, vice president of survey and inspection at Inchcape, said Wednesday. “There remains no clear timeline on when the ceasefire will be solidified to the point that container lines will regain the confidence to resume transiting the Red Sea,” Greenwood told a webinar hosted by security risk management firm Ambrey. Despite recent pledges by the Hamas-supporting Houthi militants that attacks will now be limited to ships affiliated with Israel, Greenwood was not convinced. “It will be a full and permanent ceasefire in Gaza that will make a Red Sea return possible, but it is a very unstable and uncertain environment with a lot of peripheral geopolitical issues going on,” he noted. “The threat dynamic is very uncertain and the confidence among our clients [to reroute ships via the Red Sea] is not there yet,” Greenwood added. Attacks on commercial shipping by Houthi militants at the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow waterway at the southern end of the Red Sea between Yemen and Djibouti, have forced most ocean carriers to divert around southern Africa for the past 15 months. The diversions have added up to two weeks to Asia-Europe voyages, kept rates elevated, and in 2024 increased TEU miles by 17%. A return to the Red Sea and Suez by ocean carriers will depend on both Israel and Hamas meeting the conditions agreed to in the ceasefire, the individual risk tolerance of each container shipping company and the willingness of insurance companies to underwrite vessels making the voyages. Rising cost of insurance Before the Red Sea attacks began in November 2023, insurance for one-way transits was about 0.05% of the value of a ship, but that has doubled to approximately 1%, Greenwood said. That means a vessel valued at $100 million would have an insurance cost of $1 million for a single passage. “The P&I clubs [protection and indemnity insurers] are taking a wait-and-see approach, but the underwriters, especially the lead underwriters, are likely to require material changes before lowering their premiums significantly,” said Greenwood. While making no mention of the insurance challenges, several ocean carrier executives have made it clear that they will only send ships through the Red Sea, “when it is safe to do so.” Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said during his carrier’s 2024 annual earnings call earlier this month that Maersk’s resumption of Red Sea voyages would revolve around a guarantee of safe passage for seamen, ships and cargo . “You need to look at the situation on the ground and say, ‘the Houthis [are] either no longer capable or whatever gives them the willingness to attack is no longer,’” Clerc said. CMA CGM, however, appears to be taking a more relaxed approach to regional security concerns with certain services. The carrier this week announced a new service from India to ports along the Red Sea that passes through the Houthi-controlled Bab al-Mandab Strait using three vessels operated jointly by Saudi-based Folk Maritime and Oman-based Asyad Shipping. Another service passing through the Red Sea and Suez is Kawa Shipping’s new China-Europe Express , which suggests the Chinese carrier has no fear of attacks by Houthi militants. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

No clear timeline for Red Sea return as carriers face rising insurance costs

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Automation of the customs entry process, which software provider Magaya announced this week, is being enabled by advances in data extraction from emails and offline files.</div>

Automation of the customs entry process, which software provider Magaya announced this week, is being enabled by advances in data extraction from emails and offline files.

<div class="phx-topic">Freight forwarding software vendor Magaya has released a new tool that enables its customs broker customers to automate US customs entry and product classification processes. The tool, called Broker AI Assistant, automates the extraction of data from commercial invoices to populate fields in an entry. “With no standardized format for commercial invoices, filers have, until now, spent lengthy amounts of time manually extracting data, line by line, into customs filing software,” Magaya said in a statement Tuesday. “What used to take several minutes per line item is reduced to seconds.” Broker AI Assistant extracts data from commercial invoices in PDF or spreadsheet format and creates an entry in Magaya’s customs compliance product. The product also recommends the correct Harmonized Tariff Schedules (HTS) classification codes. The product is an example of how automation based on artificial intelligence (AI) is inserting itself into a range of logistics and trade compliance processes, from bots that answer rate quote requests, to voice agents that call truckload carriers to get shipment status information, to workflow automation agents that pull data from one system into another. Last week, Gaia, a startup focusing on automation of HTS classification, said it is using AI to automatically assign HTS codes to products at a 92% accuracy level within 30 seconds, with people taking at least 15 minutes to complete the same task. Amari AI, a provider of documentation automation software, told the Journal of Commerce in early February that it is gaining traction among customs brokers. Its product speeds up the process for brokers filing traditional entries, Importer Security Filings (ISFs) and Type 86 entries, which are required for de minimis shipments for brokers participating in a US Customs and Border Protection program where the importer provides a set of data elements on duty free shipments of under $800 per day. <h3>Race to provide AI tools </h3>All of these developments come as a slew of established and new software providers race to provide AI tools to shippers, intermediaries and carriers to increase their efficiency. The selling point for many of these products comes down to simple math: Automated processes perform faster on a per-hour basis than human counterparts, are more accurate and work 24 hours per day. The idea of automating HTS classification has been discussed for at least a decade but is only now gaining traction as compliance teams and brokers get their arms around how the technology works and whether it is scalable. Automating the entry process has largely been enabled by improvements in data extraction from emails and offline files through a combination of AI and computer vision intended to replicate the workflows of humans. Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Freight forwarding software vendor Magaya has released a new tool that enables its customs broker customers to automate US customs entry and product classification processes. The tool, called Broker AI Assistant, automates the extraction of data from commercial invoices to populate fields in an entry. “With no standardized format for commercial invoices, filers have, until now, spent lengthy amounts of time manually extracting data, line by line, into customs filing software,” Magaya said in a statement Tuesday. “What used to take several minutes per line item is reduced to seconds.” Broker AI Assistant extracts data from commercial invoices in PDF or spreadsheet format and creates an entry in Magaya’s customs compliance product. The product also recommends the correct Harmonized Tariff Schedules (HTS) classification codes. The product is an example of how automation based on artificial intelligence (AI) is inserting itself into a range of logistics and trade compliance processes, from bots that answer rate quote requests, to voice agents that call truckload carriers to get shipment status information, to workflow automation agents that pull data from one system into another. Last week, Gaia, a startup focusing on automation of HTS classification, said it is using AI to automatically assign HTS codes to products at a 92% accuracy level within 30 seconds, with people taking at least 15 minutes to complete the same task. Amari AI, a provider of documentation automation software, told the Journal of Commerce in early February that it is gaining traction among customs brokers. Its product speeds up the process for brokers filing traditional entries, Importer Security Filings (ISFs) and Type 86 entries, which are required for de minimis shipments for brokers participating in a US Customs and Border Protection program where the importer provides a set of data elements on duty free shipments of under $800 per day. Race to provide AI tools All of these developments come as a slew of established and new software providers race to provide AI tools to shippers, intermediaries and carriers to increase their efficiency. The selling point for many of these products comes down to simple math: Automated processes perform faster on a per-hour basis than human counterparts, are more accurate and work 24 hours per day. The idea of automating HTS classification has been discussed for at least a decade but is only now gaining traction as compliance teams and brokers get their arms around how the technology works and whether it is scalable. Automating the entry process has largely been enabled by improvements in data extraction from emails and offline files through a combination of AI and computer vision intended to replicate the workflows of humans. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

Technology providers take aim at automating core US customs tasks

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The carrier has inked an MOU with Cochin Shipyard Ltd., India’s largest facility, pledging to work together on shipbuilding and ship repair services.</div>

The carrier has inked an MOU with Cochin Shipyard Ltd., India’s largest facility, pledging to work together on shipbuilding and ship repair services.

<div class="phx-topic">India seems to have become an appealing location for global container carriers seeking new shipbuilding capacity and yard development opportunities as their traditional marketplaces in China and South Korea remain full and prefer building ultra-large container ships. Signaling that newfound interest, Maersk — typically a bellwether for changing industry dynamics — has inked a memorandum of understanding with Cochin Shipyard Ltd. (CSL), India’s largest facility, pledging to work together on shipbuilding and ship repair services. For the Danish carrier, the strategic partnership extends its interests in India beyond port-to-port shipping and terminal/inland operations. “The collaboration comes at a crucial time when the global shipping industry is expected to face capacity constraints in ship repair yards around the world,” Maersk said in a statement. “Maersk will leverage its expertise as an off-taker in its global fleet to strengthen CSL’s capabilities, primarily focusing on container ship maintenance, repair and drydocking operations.” The carrier said it will initially concentrate on vessels up to 7,000 TEUs for afloat repairs and up to 4,000 TEUs for drydocking at Cochin, scaling up capabilities in stages. “The first Maersk vessel repair at CSL, planned already for 2025, will mark the beginning of what we envisage as a long-term collaborative relationship,” the carrier said. Maersk, which is preparing to name one of its newest methanol dual-fuel containerships in India’s Nhava Sheva Port next week, also noted that the extended business program ties in with New Delhi’s recently announced policy incentives for shipbuilding verticals. Maersk is not alone in pursuing that new “port of call.” Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM are firming up plans to follow suit as Asian supply chains increasingly diversify from a “China-plus-one” to a “China-plus-two-or-more” sourcing model. MSC is considering setting up a shipbuilding and repair center in India, while CMA CGM is expected to emulate Maersk’s approach, industry sources say. “Chinese yards now have a filled order book and are turning away smaller-size orders,” a Mumbai-based industry observer who didn’t want to be identified told the Journal of Commerce. “This is driving a business shift to India as the government has rolled out a red carpet for investment.” Contact Bency Mathew at <a href="mailto:bencyvmathew@gmail.com">bencyvmathew@gmail.com</a>.</div>

India seems to have become an appealing location for global container carriers seeking new shipbuilding capacity and yard development opportunities as their traditional marketplaces in China and South Korea remain full and prefer building ultra-large container ships. Signaling that newfound interest, Maersk — typically a bellwether for changing industry dynamics — has inked a memorandum of understanding with Cochin Shipyard Ltd. (CSL), India’s largest facility, pledging to work together on shipbuilding and ship repair services. For the Danish carrier, the strategic partnership extends its interests in India beyond port-to-port shipping and terminal/inland operations. “The collaboration comes at a crucial time when the global shipping industry is expected to face capacity constraints in ship repair yards around the world,” Maersk said in a statement. “Maersk will leverage its expertise as an off-taker in its global fleet to strengthen CSL’s capabilities, primarily focusing on container ship maintenance, repair and drydocking operations.” The carrier said it will initially concentrate on vessels up to 7,000 TEUs for afloat repairs and up to 4,000 TEUs for drydocking at Cochin, scaling up capabilities in stages. “The first Maersk vessel repair at CSL, planned already for 2025, will mark the beginning of what we envisage as a long-term collaborative relationship,” the carrier said. Maersk, which is preparing to name one of its newest methanol dual-fuel containerships in India’s Nhava Sheva Port next week, also noted that the extended business program ties in with New Delhi’s recently announced policy incentives for shipbuilding verticals. Maersk is not alone in pursuing that new “port of call.” Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM are firming up plans to follow suit as Asian supply chains increasingly diversify from a “China-plus-one” to a “China-plus-two-or-more” sourcing model. MSC is considering setting up a shipbuilding and repair center in India, while CMA CGM is expected to emulate Maersk’s approach, industry sources say. “Chinese yards now have a filled order book and are turning away smaller-size orders,” a Mumbai-based industry observer who didn’t want to be identified told the Journal of Commerce. “This is driving a business shift to India as the government has rolled out a red carpet for investment.” Contact Bency Mathew at bencyvmathew@gmail.com .

Maersk joins Indian shipbuilding race amid government incentives, China pivot

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Vessel capacity for shippers was a given in the early days of TPM, but since then, carrier customers have faced an accelerating assault on capacity coming from both outside the industry and within, writes Peter Tirschwell. </div>

Vessel capacity for shippers was a given in the early days of TPM, but since then, carrier customers have faced an accelerating assault on capacity coming from both outside the industry and within, writes Peter Tirschwell.

<div class="phx-topic">The past 25 years of container shipping since the launch of TPM have seen service quality and cost becoming progressively more negative for customers. The reason is this: a slowly building but accelerating assault on capacity, originating both from outside the industry and from within. <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5946735_0.1.jpg"></img></div>In those early days, capacity was assumed — external shocks were minor and infrequent, and carriers took it as a given that they would provide capacity into a highly fragmented and competitive market, as that is what shippers demanded. Even then the advantages in capacity limitation were well understood by carriers, even if they could do little to take advantage of it. In the first TPM keynote speech in 2001, then-APL CEO Flemming Jacobs lamented the inability of carriers, in those pre-alliance days, to adjust capacity on a short-term basis. “Flexibility to withdraw ships and services in response particularly to temporary changes [in demand] is limited,” Jacobs told attendees. That reflected carriers’ deeply entrenched assumption of capacity provision. Until the financial crisis of 2008–09, carriers were operating ships at 22 or 23 knots, essentially racing by today’s standards. It was inconceivable they would ever slow their fleets down, effectively pulling capacity. The financial crisis and resulting carrier losses triggered a change of heart, with speeds being ratcheted down in coordinated actions to 18 to 19 knots, and only lower since then. Similarly, until just a few years before COVID-19, many carriers were loath to blank sailings, believing — correctly — that it would adversely affect their customers’ supply chains. Now blank sailings and their negative impact on capacity and service are a fact of life. Carriers’ commitment to capacity took more subtle forms as well. In the decades after 2000, carriers’ marching orders to those negotiating with US West Coast dockworkers was to keep the ports open and fluid, said former Pacific Maritime Association head Joseph Miniace. Yet after COVID-19 and the mass withdrawal of capacity due to port congestion that led directly to record rates and profits, the views of carriers changed. Some were unbothered by severe Asia port congestion last year, seeing benefits in the negative capacity impact. This year, they seemed resigned to a strike on the US East Coast, believing they did everything they could to avoid it. Shippers early on saw the emerging threat to capacity. After US container imports grew 9% on average between 2002 and 2007, prompting early bouts of West Coast congestion, shippers realized capacity was limited. In 2005, beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) including Target, Nike, Macy’s and Johnson &amp; Johnson sought to raise the alarm in Washington, an effort led by then-APL CEO Ron Widdows. “Twenty years ago, we began to see symptoms that indicated that without considerable changes in transport infrastructure, we were headed to a bad place,” Widdows told the Journal of Commerce recently. <h3>External shocks, internal threats </h3>The assault on capacity has been most forceful from outside the industry. External shocks resulting in massive capacity withdrawals have come from multiple directions: public health crises (COVID-19), geopolitics (Red Sea) and climate change (Panama Canal). The impact of nationalism (trade wars) could well be coming. But the assault is coming from within the industry as well, taking the form of a gradual acceptance by carriers, made easier by consolidation, that their ability to earn profits depends on capacity withdrawals that run contrary to the interests of their customers. This includes actions they themselves take, such as blank sailings, but also takes the form of growing port congestion due to ships chronically arriving off schedule and capacity expansion struggling to keep up with demand growth. Following recent suggestions by Maersk that scrapping, returning chartered tonnage to owners and further slow steaming are tools at its disposal, investment analysts have taken notice. JP Morgan on Feb. 7 noted the positive financial impact of capacity withdrawals due to carriers "being able to take decisions to take capacity out given idle and scrap rates remain well below pre-pandemic averages while new environmental regulations in 2026 will likely drive increasing slow steaming." The view that a certain category of shipper has had enough of blank sailings and poor reliability overall is behind the Maersk/Hapag-Lloyd Gemini Cooperation tie-up and its promise of 90%-plus reliability versus the current global average of 54% as of December, according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis. But the potential that carriers have landed on the right side of capacity long term — despite investing billions in new tonnage in recent years — has even more serious consequences for customers going forward. The reason is energy transition. International maritime regulators committed in 2023 to eliminating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping by or around 2050 and will likely implement that by agreeing to binding regulations, including a mandate on carriers to transition to alternative fuels. “There is a very strong likelihood based on broad agreement that there will be a GHG intensity standard agreed at the [International Maritime Organization], to be implemented in 2028 and becoming progressively more stringent through 2050,” Bryan Wood-Thomas, the World Shipping Council’s vice president for environmental policy, told the Journal of Commerce. Viewed through a lens of capacity being assumed and abundant — in other words, the long-ago status quo — that would be a problem for carriers that have historically struggled to pass along even fuel surcharges to shippers at times of abundant capacity. But in a market of constant capacity constraint whether due to external or artificial means, the idea of passing along higher alternative fuel costs to customers becomes an increasingly more realistic scenario for carriers. That alone takes the challenges facing shippers to an entirely new level. Contact Peter Tirschwell at <a href="mailto:peter.tirschwell@spglobal.com">peter.tirschwell@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

The past 25 years of container shipping since the launch of TPM have seen service quality and cost becoming progressively more negative for customers. The reason is this: a slowly building but accelerating assault on capacity, originating both from outside the industry and from within. In those early days, capacity was assumed — external shocks were minor and infrequent, and carriers took it as a given that they would provide capacity into a highly fragmented and competitive market, as that is what shippers demanded. Even then the advantages in capacity limitation were well understood by carriers, even if they could do little to take advantage of it. In the first TPM keynote speech in 2001, then-APL CEO Flemming Jacobs lamented the inability of carriers, in those pre-alliance days, to adjust capacity on a short-term basis. “Flexibility to withdraw ships and services in response particularly to temporary changes [in demand] is limited,” Jacobs told attendees. That reflected carriers’ deeply entrenched assumption of capacity provision. Until the financial crisis of 2008–09, carriers were operating ships at 22 or 23 knots, essentially racing by today’s standards. It was inconceivable they would ever slow their fleets down, effectively pulling capacity. The financial crisis and resulting carrier losses triggered a change of heart, with speeds being ratcheted down in coordinated actions to 18 to 19 knots, and only lower since then. Similarly, until just a few years before COVID-19, many carriers were loath to blank sailings, believing — correctly — that it would adversely affect their customers’ supply chains. Now blank sailings and their negative impact on capacity and service are a fact of life. Carriers’ commitment to capacity took more subtle forms as well. In the decades after 2000, carriers’ marching orders to those negotiating with US West Coast dockworkers was to keep the ports open and fluid, said former Pacific Maritime Association head Joseph Miniace. Yet after COVID-19 and the mass withdrawal of capacity due to port congestion that led directly to record rates and profits, the views of carriers changed. Some were unbothered by severe Asia port congestion last year, seeing benefits in the negative capacity impact. This year, they seemed resigned to a strike on the US East Coast, believing they did everything they could to avoid it. Shippers early on saw the emerging threat to capacity. After US container imports grew 9% on average between 2002 and 2007, prompting early bouts of West Coast congestion, shippers realized capacity was limited. In 2005, beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) including Target, Nike, Macy’s and Johnson & Johnson sought to raise the alarm in Washington, an effort led by then-APL CEO Ron Widdows. “Twenty years ago, we began to see symptoms that indicated that without considerable changes in transport infrastructure, we were headed to a bad place,” Widdows told the Journal of Commerce recently. External shocks, internal threats The assault on capacity has been most forceful from outside the industry. External shocks resulting in massive capacity withdrawals have come from multiple directions: public health crises (COVID-19), geopolitics (Red Sea) and climate change (Panama Canal). The impact of nationalism (trade wars) could well be coming. But the assault is coming from within the industry as well, taking the form of a gradual acceptance by carriers, made easier by consolidation, that their ability to earn profits depends on capacity withdrawals that run contrary to the interests of their customers. This includes actions they themselves take, such as blank sailings, but also takes the form of growing port congestion due to ships chronically arriving off schedule and capacity expansion struggling to keep up with demand growth. Following recent suggestions by Maersk that scrapping, returning chartered tonnage to owners and further slow steaming are tools at its disposal, investment analysts have taken notice. JP Morgan on Feb. 7 noted the positive financial impact of capacity withdrawals due to carriers "being able to take decisions to take capacity out given idle and scrap rates remain well below pre-pandemic averages while new environmental regulations in 2026 will likely drive increasing slow steaming." The view that a certain category of shipper has had enough of blank sailings and poor reliability overall is behind the Maersk/Hapag-Lloyd Gemini Cooperation tie-up and its promise of 90%-plus reliability versus the current global average of 54% as of December, according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis. But the potential that carriers have landed on the right side of capacity long term — despite investing billions in new tonnage in recent years — has even more serious consequences for customers going forward. The reason is energy transition. International maritime regulators committed in 2023 to eliminating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping by or around 2050 and will likely implement that by agreeing to binding regulations, including a mandate on carriers to transition to alternative fuels. “There is a very strong likelihood based on broad agreement that there will be a GHG intensity standard agreed at the [International Maritime Organization], to be implemented in 2028 and becoming progressively more stringent through 2050,” Bryan Wood-Thomas, the World Shipping Council’s vice president for environmental policy, told the Journal of Commerce. Viewed through a lens of capacity being assumed and abundant — in other words, the long-ago status quo — that would be a problem for carriers that have historically struggled to pass along even fuel surcharges to shippers at times of abundant capacity. But in a market of constant capacity constraint whether due to external or artificial means, the idea of passing along higher alternative fuel costs to customers becomes an increasingly more realistic scenario for carriers. That alone takes the challenges facing shippers to an entirely new level. Contact Peter Tirschwell at peter.tirschwell@spglobal.com .

Ocean carriers’ ever-tightening grip on capacity control shows no signs of loosening

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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