Container Shipping News

Carriers have penciled in a return to the Red Sea and Suez Canal for the second half of the year, and some analysts are also using that as a baseline for their market outlooks, but the reality is that no one knows.

Container shipping has become a market where prior patterns of cyclicality must now coexist with non-cyclical forces of external shocks that long-beleaguered carriers have learned to use to their advantage, writes Peter Tirschwell.

The vessels will vary in size between 8,000 TEUs and 15,000 TEUs and are likely meant for deployment on the carrier’s longer-haul intra-Asia and mainline east-west services.

Bills introduced in the House and Senate seek to expand the US-flag international fleet from the current level of about 80 ships to 250 in 10 years and would require all government cargoes to be carried on US-flag vessels.

Imports are likely to remain robust into January as shippers attempt to beat new tariffs expected to be imposed by the incoming Trump administration while also navigating an early Lunar New Year that begins Jan. 29.

Continuing the steady slide from a late-July peak, average spot rates from West India to the US East Coast have dropped about 20% from the end of November.

Shippers on the Europe-US trade lane are facing significant rate increases in January as the potential for disruption grows from labor uncertainty and new operating alliances.

Handling large container exchanges with vessels arriving late and bunching outside import gateways is leading to bottlenecks at some of the region’s largest hubs.

Spot rates from Asia to the US rose to highs this week as a looming dockworker strike on Jan. 15, the early Lunar New Year in Asia and the threat of tariffs under the new administration are keeping front-loading of imports at unusually high levels for December.

The risk of an East and Gulf coast port strike, US tariffs on China, and service disruptions through the launch of new alliances and networks await the industry in the first two months of 2025, writes Journal of Commerce Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.

One additional risk to a threatened strike at US East and Gulf Coast ports, which the container shipping industry did not have in October, is that the potential disruption would come just as new alliance networks are to be phased in, writes analyst Lars Jensen.

Both CMA CGM and MSC will add a surcharge to trans-Pacific cargo transiting the canal beginning Jan. 1, pointing to higher operating costs thanks to a new system of reserving transits through the waterway.

Holes in the Atlantic port network are being plugged as ONE, the Ocean Alliance and HMM prepare for February’s launch of the new container shipping groupings.

Severe weather and a rush of cargo before Lunar New Year celebrations slow Asian factory production are clogging major ports from Tokyo to Shanghai.

Customer advisories from Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd show the carriers plan to “simplify the process” by merging compliance with the EU ETS and FuelEU regulations into one fuel surcharge.

Advent eModal, a three-decade landmark provider of fee collection and appointment scheduling at container terminals, has been sold by private equity group Blackstone to air cargo software specialist CargoSprint.

The union’s hardline stance against the further encroachment of automation at US ports received a big boost with the incoming administration saying maritime employers should look to labor to increase capacity and efficiency.

A statement posted by the president-elect on social media Thursday made it clear he stood with the International Longshoremen’s Association and their opposition to automation at ports along the East and Gulf coasts.

Rail-mounted gantry cranes can reduce labor requirements and significantly increase the throughput of marine terminals, but those gains still come at a steep cost, listeners of the Journal of Commerce’s Port Performance North America webcast heard.

The proposed facility at Jinhae, about 25 miles west of downtown Busan, would have nine berths in its first phase capable of handling more than 6 million TEUs annually by 2032.

A consortium of six national labor groups, representing thousands of dockworkers in the country, was to launch an indefinite industrial action from Dec. 17 without the deal.

The facility’s launch customer is known to be Amazon, which will use the strategically located warehouse to provide fulfilment services across the region.

The Oregon gateway is moving closer to becoming a landlord port after it reached a framework agreement with a third-party operator for its only international container terminal.

Carrier executives who dominate the board of the United States Maritime Alliance tell the Journal of Commerce they are done with what they consider to be an overly passive approach demonstrated in recent months by USMX staff in the face of repeated provocations by ILA leadership.

Fears that methanol will not be available in the coming years at the scale required to power a growing and thirsty ocean fleet are pushing the order book deeper down the LNG pathway.

The Global Port Tracker upgraded its forecast for imports over the next several months despite the threat of labor unrest and new tariffs by the incoming Trump administration.

The February launch date coincides with the start of services by the Premier Alliance formed by ONE, HMM and Yang Ming.

While carriers can offset some operating costs by raising rate levels, reducing carbon emissions on voyages that are taking two weeks longer is becoming increasingly important as decarbonization regulations tighten.

The Federal Maritime Commission said that it needs more information about the new grouping of ocean carriers known as the Premier Alliance before the vessel-sharing agreement can begin in February on US trades.

The Asia-North America trade will be featured on 13 of the initial 24 services inaugurated by the ONE-HMM-Yang Ming partnership.

The extensive frontloading of imports that occurred this fall will keep cargo volumes modest this month, but the vagaries of labor negotiations and new tariffs threaten to disrupt the market in short order.

Strong bookings out of Asia require more capacity than carriers can provide, which, according to Hapag-Lloyd, is having the predictable impact on prices.

Canada’s anti-trust enforcer said laws already on the books adequately cover the liner industry, but it has no ability to police freight rates or service levels.

US maritime regulators are investigating reports that the Spanish government has blocked US-flag Maersk ships carrying military cargoes for Israel from calling Algeciras.

Various labor groups representing dockworkers at the country’s 12 public gateways have threatened to strike if the government fails to follow through on a wage agreement due to financial strains.

An influx of seafood shipments, combined with several other market factors, is leaving US importers of refrigerated products from Asia scrambling for reefer equipment.

The regulation is designed to enhance security across global supply chains and brings the EU in line with other major exporting countries.

The union representing 45,000 longshore workers along the East and Gulf coasts is seeking to block technology that management says is critical for land-constrained ports to handle larger ships.

There is no guarantee we will see the same market shifts in early 2025 that we saw during the last big alliance shakeup in 2017, but the operational realities faced by carriers are essentially the same, writes Lars Jensen.

The ocean carrier looks to secure berth slots and yard space ahead of 2025 as container lines and new alliances plan to leverage terminal ownership stakes.