<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Post-production inventories in Europe increased at the sharpest pace in more than 25 years as weakening demand leaves firms battling to sell finished products. </div>

Post-production inventories in Europe increased at the sharpest pace in more than 25 years as weakening demand leaves firms battling to sell finished products.

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<div class="phx-topic">European shippers are delaying or canceling import orders as full warehouses across the continent and deteriorating consumer demand leave cargo owners with a growing number of stores loaded with unwanted inventory. A steep drop in demand across Europe’s manufacturing sector has seen a build-up in unsold goods as firms find it difficult to shift finished products to their markets, according to the Eurozone purchasing manager’s index for August from S&amp;P Global, the parent company of JOC.com. “Manufacturing remained mired in contraction in August, seeing another record accumulation of stocks of finished goods as firms were unable to shift products in a falling demand environment,” Andrew Harker, economics director at S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence, said in his analysis of the survey data. <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5256631_1.0.PNG"></img><a href="/s3/files/styles%2F400w%2Fs3%2Ffield_feature_image%2FAE%20Xeneta%20rates.PNG">Click to enlarge</a>.</div>Post-production inventories in Europe increased at the sharpest pace in more than 25 years of data collection in August, with the rate of accumulation hitting a record high for the second month in a row. “This glut of inventories suggests little prospect of an improvement in manufacturing production any time soon,” Harker said. Markus Panhauser, head of ocean freight in Europe for DHL Global Forwarding, explained that the high stock levels were a result of shippers placing orders earlier than usual over the past year to offset port congestion, shortages in raw materials, and growing bottlenecks in inland logistics. But when the cargo began to arrive in European ports, it quickly filled all available storage space and coincided with declining consumer demand amid a deepening cost-of-living crisis and runaway inflation. “These full warehouses have triggered quite significant order shifts on the customer side --orders have been delayed or even cancelled, and some customers are even facing cash flow issues due to the high level of stocks,” Panhauser told JOC.com. Falling demand is one of the main issues facing European importers as they struggle to pare down the glut in inventory that affects both sales and the ability to meet minimum quantity commitments (MQCs) agreed with carriers. “When I look at inventories [in Europe], we are seeing that there is a lot of inventory in the system and there are many companies that will have to move a lot of that inventory,” Carlos Alberini, CEO of fashion retailer Guess, told analysts in a second quarter earnings call Wednesday. <h2>Europe facing runaway inflation </h2>There is no good news on the European economic front. Inflation in the European Union reached 9.8 percent in July, a 25-year high and up from 9.6 percent in June. McKinsey’s latest European Consumer Pulse Survey, carried out in June, found that consumers were buying smaller quantities or delaying purchases, with basic needs such as food, transport, and energy accounting for a higher share of household budgets. Spending on discretionary items has been cut, as has money put toward savings. The slowing demand can be seen in both containerized imports from China — Europe’s largest trading partner — through the first half of the year, and in rate levels on the Asia-North Europe trade that have tumbled since Jan. 1. Europe’s import volume from China in the first half of 3.84 million TEU was down almost 5 percent compared with the first six months of 2021, with January 2022 the last month a year over year increase was reported, according to the latest available data from Container Trades Statistics (CTS). Average spot market rates from China to North Europe valid for 30 days or less have fallen 38 percent since Jan. 1, and at $5,030/TEU have now fallen below the long-term contract rate level that is at $5,054/TEU, according to rate benchmarking platform Xeneta. Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis noted in its Sunday Spotlight newsletter this week that spot rates historically increase in August. However, the spot rate decline this August, atypical as it was, was also the second-largest rate drop during that month since 2012. The analyst’s rate projection for September shows a 28 percent decline in Asia-North Europe spot rates compared with last September. For context, even with the significant decline in average China-North Europe rates since the beginning of the year, the spot market price is still five times that of August 2019, and the long-term contract rate level is almost six times higher than pre-pandemic.JOC Analyst Cathy Roberson contributed to this report. Follow her on Twitter at: <a href="https://twitter.com/cmroberson06">@cmroberson06</a>.Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com">greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com</a> and follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_knowler">@greg_knowler</a>.</div>

Asia-Europe

Container lines

Europe awash with excess inventory as demand slows

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The Asia–Europe trade could face “significant overcapacity” when port congestion and related bottlenecks are resolved due to the slump in demand growth that has been ongoing for more than a year, according to analyst Sea-Intelligence.</div>

The Asia–Europe trade could face “significant overcapacity” when port congestion and related bottlenecks are resolved due to the slump in demand growth that has been ongoing for more than a year, according to analyst Sea-Intelligence.

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<div class="phx-topic">Asia–Europe container trade volumes that have fallen 4.8 percent year over year in the first half of 2022, coupled with steadily declining spot rates reflecting loosening space on ships, are raising warnings of overcapacity on the horizon.<div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5251760_1.0.png"></img><a href="/s3/files/styles%2F400w%2Fs3%2Ffield_feature_image%2FCTSJune22.png">Click to enlarge</a>.</div>In his latest Sunday Spotlight research note, Alan Murphy of Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis said the Asia-Europe trade could face “significant overcapacity” when port congestion, shipping delays, and similar bottlenecks are resolved due to the slump in demand growth that has been ongoing for more than a year. European imports from China fell 8.8 percent year over year to 662,420 TEU in June, the fifth consecutive month in which volumes have declined on a year-over-year basis, according to data from Container Trades Statistics, while westbound spot rates have slipped again and are down by nearly a third from last year. “The growth rate for [Europe to Asia] export volumes is now negative for the ninth consecutive month,” wrote Murphy. “This points to the potential for a sharp downwards spiral in market conditions, once the bottlenecks which are keeping capacity out of the equation are fixed.” The drop in demand is being reflected in container freight rates, with spot rates from Shanghai to Rotterdam slipping 2 percent to $8,939 per FEU last week, according to the Drewry World Container Index released Thursday. Drewry said rates between Shanghai-Rotterdam have slumped 34 percent in the last 12 months, with a 28 percent fall on the backhaul trade from Rotterdam to Shanghai to $1,199 per FEU. Underlining the rate crash, the Shanghai export containerized freight rates index on settled rates stood at $6,483.75 Monday, down from about $9,500 in early March when the index started to plunge. Contact Special Correspondent Keith Wallis at <a href="mailto:keithwallis@hotmail.com">keithwallis@hotmail.com</a>. </div>

Easing bottlenecks could bring ‘significant overcapacity’ on Asia–Europe: Sea-Intelligence

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The main rail option from China for European importers is via the so-called “middle corridor,” but as demand steadily increases, so too are the many chokepoints along the route. </div>

The main rail option from China for European importers is via the so-called “middle corridor,” but as demand steadily increases, so too are the many chokepoints along the route.

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<div class="phx-topic">The “middle corridor” rail route between China and Europe is seeing strong demand from forwarders, but as demand and services increase, providers are having to manage infrastructure shortcomings, multiple handovers of cargo, high rates, and transit times of close to two months. “With the start of the Ukraine–Russia war, the middle corridor became an alternative, bypassing sanctioned and conflict areas with the knowledge that the complexity of the routing was high,” Thomas Kowitzki, head of China rail and multimodal Europe for DHL Global Forwarding, told JOC.com Friday. The middle corridor transits multiple countries with several transport legs, two seas that need to be crossed, and many cargo transfers that must be synchronized. Kowitzki said that means the advantages of cost and transit times that were possible on the northern corridor could not be reached with the middle rail route still in a development stage. Kowitzki said the average transit time was 45 to 50 days to Northern Europe, and 35 to 40 days to Turkey, with pain points in sea-to-rail transfers connecting the Azerbaijani city of Baku on the Caspian Sea with the cities of Poti and Batumi in Georgia on the Black Sea. Then there were chokepoints in the transfer of cargo in Poti and Batumi from rail to ship for transport across the Black Sea to the congested Romanian port of Constanta. About 1.5 million TEU was carried on the China-Europe northern corridor via Russia and Belarus in 2021, a 30 percent increase on the previous year, with just 150,000 TEU using the middle corridor route to the south. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, most of the northern route volume has been redirected to the Asia–North Europe container shipping trade where access to space is improving. Peter Sand, chief analyst at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, said before the war in Ukraine, China–Europe rail was situated neatly between air and ocean with the benefits being faster transit than ocean but lower rates than air. But as ocean shipping rates fall off their record highs and settle at lower levels, the opportunity cost of rail will be higher, and shippers will consider that when procuring freight from Asia. “To me, the rail corridor from China to Europe has always been a subsidized ‘nice to have’ offering, but never a ‘must have’ for a lot of shippers,” Sand told JOC.com. “It will take years to really mature the rail option … capacity is simply too low when compared to the 17 million TEU that is shipped on the ocean.” <h2>Lack of capacity hampers shipments </h2>Still, forwarders continue to add services, despite a transit time from China to North Europe often in excess of 50 days and the many handover points and mode changes back and forth from rail to sea that increase the risk of cargo damage or loss and drives up rate levels, which forwarders say are at least 30 percent higher than rates via the northern route. Kuehne + Nagel highlighted the lack of capacity on the middle route, which meant larger shippers would continue to transport the bulk of their volume by ocean. However, K+N spokesperson Franziska Bietke told JOC.com that with the right infrastructure improvements, it had the potential to become a valid alternative to ocean freight. “Whether the middle corridor option is economically viable depends also on individual evaluation on shipment level,” she said. “Factors such as pickup and delivery location of the cargo are an important consideration.” Several major forwarders have launched new services using the middle corridor or are trying to increase volume in their existing services. DHL Global Forwarding started its first block train in April and has gradually increased monthly volume with regular services to Turkey, southeast Europe, and to Duisburg and Hamburg. Nippon Express (China), part of the Nippon Express Holdings group, in June launched a new intermodal service from China to Europe using the middle corridor via the Caspian Sea, while CEVA Logistics in May increased its block train service from Xi’an to Duisburg to weekly. “Since April, we have been offering China-to-Europe block train solutions to our customers via the middle corridor,” Xavier Bour, global ground and rail leader at CEVA Logistics, told JOC.com. “It’s a complex route, requiring close collaboration with all operators — rail, short sea, and terminals — given the combination of modes and potential congestion at some of the nodes.” <a href="/rail-intermodal/international-rail/asia/china-europe-%E2%80%98middle%E2%80%99-rail-corridor-has-long-term-potential-maersk_20220601.html">Maersk has also introduced a new middle corridor routing</a> via the Caspian Sea that the carrier believes offers long-term potential. While logistics providers continue to build volume and services on the middle corridor, not all global forwarders are interested in the rail route. For DSV, the only rail solution from China to Europe is via Russia, “which is not an option for us,” Jens Lund, COO for the Denmark-based forwarder, told JOC.com in a recent interview. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a> and follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_knowler">@greg_knowler</a>. </div>

International rail

Multiple pain points test forwarders on China–Europe rail route

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Declining volumes, the Russia–Ukraine war, and a deteriorating economic outlook have left Europe’s busiest container port with a bleak outlook for the year. </div>

Declining volumes, the Russia–Ukraine war, and a deteriorating economic outlook have left Europe’s busiest container port with a bleak outlook for the year.

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<div class="phx-topic">Rotterdam saw volume slip 4.4 percent year over year in the first half of 2022, dragged lower by the loss of Russian cargo and ongoing disruption to terminal operations from canceled calls and growing call sizes from larger vessels. Throughput at Rotterdam fell to 7.27 million TEU in H1, following a downward trend reported by nearby rival Antwerp-Bruges, Europe’s second-busiest container port, <a href="/port-news/european-ports/port-antwerp/antwerp-extends-volume-decline-through-first-half_20220714.html">where first-half volume</a> declined 6.2 percent to 6.77 million TEU. Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest container port, left little room for optimism for the rest of the year, warning Friday that the shadow of recession was hanging over Europe. “Energy prices are high, and this is a major factor in the sharp rise in inflation,” the port said in a statement. “A recession may follow. This makes forecasting throughput volumes for the second half of the year very difficult.” <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5256653_1.0.PNG"></img><a href="/s3/files/styles%2F400w%2Fs3%2Ffield_feature_image%2FAE%20reliable.PNG">Click to enlarge</a>.</div>The bleak outlook was supported by the Eurozone Manufacturing PMI for June compiled by S&amp;P Global, the parent company of JOC.com. In his analysis of the monthly result, Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence, said the downturn in Europe was set to gain momentum in the coming months. “Inventories of both raw materials and unsold stock are rising due to lower-than-expected production and sales volumes, respectively, hinting that an inventory correction will act as an additional drag on the sector in coming months,” Williamson said. “Backlogs of work are meanwhile falling, which is often a prelude to firms reducing operating capacity, and business confidence in the outlook has fallen to the gloomiest for just over two years,” he added. <h2>Late vessels hard to manage </h2>On top of the discontinuation of services to and from Russia, Rotterdam has been struggling to handle the poor schedule reliability of carriers, larger vessels, and a significant increase in call sizes. To make up time, large vessels were often canceling calls to ports in their itineraries, with Rotterdam reporting a 5.5 percent drop in first-half calls compared with the first six months of last year. The call sizes were also up 6.1 percent in the first half year over year. “This results in peaks in activity at the terminals, which were already very busy since containers are left there for longer times on average because ship arrival times are more unreliable,” Rotterdam noted. Only one in four Asia-North Europe vessels was on time in May, the latest data available, with schedule reliability for the first five months at 18.4 percent, according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis. While the poor schedule reliability by vessels is creating operational chaos for ports and terminals, it is also having the effect of carriers shifting transshipment calls to smaller ports in Europe to avoid delays at the major hubs such as Rotterdam, the port statement said. The <a href="/maritime-news/trade-lanes/asia-europe/north-europe-port-congestion-worsens-despite-easing-volume_20220526.html">slowing of import volumes into North Europe</a> has done little to mitigate congestion at hub ports in the region. Container volume imported into North Europe and the Mediterranean in the first four months of the year fell 4 percent year over year to 4.16 million TEU, according to the latest available data from Container Trades Statistics (CTS). Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com">greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com</a> and follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_knowler">@greg_knowler</a>. </div>

International ports

Rotterdam container volumes drop in H1 as recession hangs over Europe

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Maersk is the first carrier to outline the cost to shippers of complying with Europe’s impending emissions trading rules, but other carriers want greater clarity before committing to any surcharges. </div>

Maersk is the first carrier to outline the cost to shippers of complying with Europe’s impending emissions trading rules, but other carriers want greater clarity before committing to any surcharges.

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<div class="phx-topic">The cost implications for shippers when Europe’s cap-and-trade emissions reduction system is applied to container shipping beginning next year are coming into view, with Maersk the first carrier to put a price on the cost of compliance. Maersk noted in a recent statement that the cost of compliance with <a href="/maritime-news/ec-brings-international-ocean-routes-emissions-system_20210714.html">Europe’s emissions trading system (ETS)</a>, which will be implemented from Jan. 1, 2023, “will likely be significant, therefore impacting the cost of shipping.” The carrier outlined the costs that would be passed on to its customers. From the first quarter of 2023, Maersk will implement a standalone surcharge on the Asia-North Europe trade of 170 Euro ($172) per FEU and 255 Euro ($258) per reefer; on North Europe-US, the charges will be 184 Euro ($182) per FEU and 276 Euro ($280) per reefer. The European Commission’s ETS proposal is now under discussion within the executive body of the EU. All ships trading strictly within the EU will be included in the EU’s carbon market from 2023. Polluters sailing within the EU will have to pay for all greenhouse gases (GHG) they emit — including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide — and those sailing between EU and non-EU ports will pay for 50 percent of emissions until 2026. After 2026, the scope of the carbon market will be automatically extended to 100 percent of ships entering and leaving European ports.The EC proposal includes a phase-in period, with the carbon price per ton of CO2 for verified carbon emissions applied to shipping gradually increasing from 20 percent in 2023 to 100 percent by 2026. However, the European Parliament last month adopted a hard line on the ETS, calling for the ruling to apply to all voyages between non-EU and EU ports, extending the reach of the regulation far beyond Europe. The EU Parliament also wants the phase-in period abolished, instead applying the ETS to 100 percent of emissions from 2024. Before the ETS proposal can pass into legislation, the European Commission, Parliament, and Council must reach agreement. “Given the differing positions on elements such as the phase-in period, the percentage for voyages between EU and non-EU ports, and when carbon pricing begins, as well as other non-logistics related issues, these negotiations will take some time,” Maersk noted in its surcharge statement. “We expect that political agreement can be reached towards the end of 2022.” <h2>Avoiding regulatory overlap </h2>The World Shipping Council (WSC), while supportive of European efforts to reduce shipping emissions, believes regional action should complement global decarbonization initiatives. The EU Parliament’s proposal to extend the ETS to non-EU ports <a href="/maritime-news/europe%E2%80%99s-ets-risks-undermining-global-decarbonization-drive-wsc_20211103.html">will be counterproductive</a>, the WSC said earlier this year. “Extra-EU scope will likely provoke significant trade tensions that undermine global cooperation in combating climate change while encouraging countries to seek national revenues through the taxation of international trade through independent and overlapping regulations,” the WSC noted. While Maersk is the first carrier out of the blocks with a surcharge, other container shipping companies were not prepared to commit to an amount before the ETS proposal was finalized. “Hapag-Lloyd is closely following the development of the inclusion of shipping into the EU ETS and is also analyzing the possible impacts on Hapag-Lloyd’s business,” the carrier told JOC.com in a statement this week. “As this regulation is not final yet and some aspects not agreed — like the scope of the regulation — that can have a major impact on the additional costs, we cannot state yet whether and how EU-ETS will impact the rates of Hapag-Lloyd for transport that includes European ports,” the carrier added. Ocean Network Express (ONE) told JOC.com it was “closely monitoring the progress” of the ETS discussions within the EU, but also declined to put a price on the cost of compliance. "We understand there might be a huge impact and we will take all the necessary actions if needed,” a spokesperson for ONE said.<h2>Sharing cost burden </h2>There is no getting around the costs of complying with decarbonization initiatives such as Europe’s ETS, but the costs are a burden to be shared by all those in the supply chain, the logistics director for a global shipper told JOC.com. “Sustainability in any element of business has an on-cost, especially for those with a large manufacturing footprint, and everyone needs to recognize that,” he said. “It doesn’t come free, and those costs will need to be passed on, from carriers to manufacturers to consumers. But while there will be a cost of compliance for all parties in the supply chain, the costs will come down over time.” The indirect emissions produced by an organization’s transportation and logistics operations form part of the so-called Scope 3 emissions. Shippers seeking to track and reduce emissions from service providers are baking sustainability into their selection criteria for forwarders, and the demands from customers were intensifying, according to Brian Bourke, chief strategy officer for SEKO Logistics. “Consumers are demanding and expecting changes in behavior from the companies they buy from,” Bourke said in a media briefing this week. “The demand for visibility in carbon and sulfur emissions has never been higher than it is today, and it will be higher tomorrow, and higher the next day.” Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com">greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com</a> and follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_knowler">@greg_knowler</a>. </div>

Maersk puts price on Europe’s emissions trading system

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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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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Falling import volumes into North Europe amid rapidly deteriorating economic conditions have not provided any relief for hub ports in the region as logistics challenges mount. </div>

Falling import volumes into North Europe amid rapidly deteriorating economic conditions have not provided any relief for hub ports in the region as logistics challenges mount.

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<div class="phx-topic">Congestion has reached critical levels at some of North Europe’s hub ports with transport and supply chain service providers caught in an endless cycle of logistics challenges that begin with full terminals and carriers missing schedules, and extend deep inland. The bottlenecks are exacerbated by ongoing driver shortages, and disruptions to inland rail and barge services that not even slowing import volumes and rapidly worsening economic conditions have been able to ease. “Bottlenecks across the Asia-North Europe network have contributed to an accumulation of delays on our services,” Maersk told customers in an advisory Monday. “The situation is driven by a number of external factors, chiefly terminal congestion.” Maersk said the extensive delays driven by congestion required departure dates on its Asia-Europe services to be adjusted. So far, 17 sailings in conjunction with its 2M Alliance partner Mediterranean Shipping Co. will be adjusted from August until November. With the operational challenges mounting, and shippers overloaded with inventory delaying the collection of their cargo from ports, boxes continue to stack up at container terminals. In the German port of Bremerhaven, this has prompted Maersk and subsidiary Hamburg Süd to warn shippers that containers will be moved to off-dock facilities if not collected “within reasonable time frames.” Hapag-Lloyd, responding to bottlenecks at the French ports of Le Havre and Fos-sur-Mer, has imposed a congestion surcharge of 25 Euros ($26) from July 1 for all import and export truck carrier haulage moves across all container types to encourage the timely pick up and drop off of boxes. <h2>Port challenges pushing delays inland </h2>A crucial link in Europe’s import supply chain are the intermodal services that collect and carry containers to inland terminals for distribution via road, rail, or waterway to their final destinations. But with disrupted deep-sea vessel schedules and lengthy delays as a result, service providers such as European intermodal operator Contargo are struggling to manage the congestion across barge and rail services. “The terminals at the seaports are full and are only accepting containers within very narrow time windows,” Contargo noted in a market update late last week. “The growing shortage of drivers and empty containers is not only increasing the need for organization, but is causing further delays.” Average wait times for barges in Rotterdam and Antwerp have improved in June compared with May but remain far above pre-pandemic levels. The wait time for barges last week was 56 hours in Rotterdam and 51 hours in Antwerp. Rail freight in Europe has also faced significant disruption through June with uncoordinated construction work in Germany closing lines and impacting train arrivals and departures, creating imbalances across the network. “In some cases, trains are not being processed, booked time windows are not adhered to by the seaport terminals, or they are changed or cancelled at short notice, leading to more train cancellations and overbookings,” Contargo noted in its update. “This situation is causing more and more containers to accumulate at our hinterland terminals, meaning that additional container handling maneuvers have to be carried out in the terminals and throughput times are getting longer,” it added. <h2>Fewer containers, more congestion </h2>The <a href="/maritime-news/trade-lanes/asia-europe/north-europe-port-congestion-worsens-despite-easing-volume_20220526.html">slowing of import volumes into North Europe</a> has done little to mitigate congestion at hub ports in the region. Container volume imported into North Europe and the Mediterranean in the first four months of the year fell 4 percent year over year to 4.16 million TEU, according to the latest available data from Container Trades Statistics (CTS). With European economies hammered by soaring energy and food prices that have led to runaway inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, analysts warn the decline in demand is set to accelerate. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence, said the <a href="https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/393fc1e5fe83458897d91fafee2d434b">June S&amp;P Global Eurozone Manufacturing PMI survey</a> indicated that the downturn in Europe would gain momentum in the coming months. “Demand is now weakening as firms report customers to be growing more cautious in relation to spending due to rising prices and the uncertain economic outlook,” Williamson said in his analysis of the PMI result. S&amp;P Global is the parent company of JOC.com. “Inventories of both raw materials and unsold stock are rising due to lower-than-expected production and sales volumes respectively, hinting that an inventory correction will act as an additional drag on the sector in coming months,” Williamson added. “Backlogs of work are meanwhile falling, which is often a prelude to firms reducing operating capacity, and business confidence in the outlook has fallen to the gloomiest for just over two years.” <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5251831_1.0.PNG"></img><a href="/s3/files/styles%2F400w%2Fs3%2Ffield_feature_image%2FAE%20reliability%20May%2022.PNG">Click to enlarge</a>.</div>A major driver of terminal congestion is poor schedule reliability, and even though on-time performance on Asia-North Europe improved by 6 percentage points in May, vessel reliability of 25.7 percent meant just one in four ships was arriving within one day of its scheduled slot, according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis. Schedule reliability on the North Europe trade has averaged 18 percent over the first five months of 2022 compared with 27 percent last year. On top of the disrupted schedules are increasing call sizes — the volume of containers moving on and off a ship during a single port call, also known as the container exchange. These have risen significantly at North European ports this year, and greater volume on ships that are bunching up outside their arrival windows is placing huge pressure on the handling capabilities of terminals. Through the first five months of the year at North Europe’s busiest ports, average call sizes of vessels 13,500 TEU and above on the deep-sea trades increased 12 percent year over year while the number of vessels calling at the hubs increased just 8 percent, the latest data from the S&amp;P Global Port Performance Program shows. In the 8,500 to 13,500 TEU category, average call size was up 7 percent while number of vessel calls declined 19 percent from January through May. The Port Performance Program data shows average call sizes in the first five months compared with the same period last year at Felixstowe were up 30 percent, Gdansk up 26 percent, Rotterdam up 20 percent, and Antwerp and Hamburg both up 10 percent. Average port hours of the deep-sea vessels across the North Europe hubs in the first five months increased 20 percent year over year to 52 hours, while the average anchorage hours increased 37.6 percent in January through May compared with the same period in 2021. This was a trend highlighted by Drewry, which noted in a recent report that productivity across North Europe container terminals has deteriorated significantly as the challenges of handling these larger container exchanges with volatile demand saw carriers consolidating port calls. “The steep increase in cargo exchanges is posing similar challenges for terminal operators as the prior spate of vessel upsizing,” Eleanor Hadland, senior analyst for ports and terminals at Drewry, wrote in the analyst’s <a href="https://www.drewry.co.uk/news/news/north-europe-ports-productivity-under-pressure-due-to-higher-exchanges?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Press%20Release%20Campaign">latest ports and terminals insight</a>. “But the difference is that vessel upsizing was planned well in advance, whereas the 2021-22 ramp up in cargo exchanges has happened much faster and with little notice,” she added, adding that “a spike in vessel call exchanges has created a much larger headache for European terminal operators.” Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com">greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com</a> and follow him on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_knowler">@greg_knowler</a>. </div>

Port congestion in Europe at ‘critical’ levels: carriers

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