Container lines

Eastbound trans-Pacific spot rates slipped 2 percent to a new low of $748 for a 40-foot container bound for the U.S. West Coast from Shanghai, as carriers and beneficial cargo owners negotiate contracts for the coming year.

A pact between India and Bangladesh to streamline and bolster coastal shipping operations between the two countries is beginning to bear fruit with the first departure of a container ship under those guidelines from Krishnapatnam, India, on Monday.

Brazil meat exporters had a week of both good and bad news as they seek new markets in Latin America to capitalize on the depreciation of the local currency, the real, which has recently buoyed the country’s beef exports.

Nepal will be given access to China’s Bohai Rim port of Tianjin in an agreement signed in Beijing this week, allowing the landlocked mountain republic to break its near total dependence on trade routes through India.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services closed 2015 in the black, but sank to a loss in a fourth quarter marked by record-low freight rates.

The Panama Canal Authority said its new locks will be inaugurated June 26, more than two years after the original completion target.

There are now less than 100 days before a new international container weight rule goes into effect and the rollout is taking shape in very different ways in each of the 162 participating nations, with some governments giving clear guidelines while others haven’t provided any direction at all to date.

Hapag-Lloyd swung to a net profit of 114 million euros ($128 million) last year from a 604 million euro loss in 2014, posting its first year in the black since 2010 and closing the gap with industry pacesetters.

Shreyas Shipping and Logistics, India’s fast-growing short-sea ship operator, last week added a vessel with a capacity of 1,700 twenty-foot-equivalent units to its fleet.

CMA CGM has taken another step in its campaign to expand coverage of the African continent, adding direct calls to Djibouti and new inland connections with Ethiopia just days after teaming up with NileDutch to boost its West Africa service network.

The Panama Canal Authority will set draft restrictions on shipping using the vital east-west waterway as the El Nino weather phenomenon causes water levels to fall well below average for this time of year.

With the 2016-17 trans-Pacific service contract negotiations well underway, beneficial cargo owners and ocean carriers say they face so many uncertainties that virtually everything in the contract, from freight rates to chassis usage, is open to renegotiation.

Ocean carriers are telling exporters that even though they are required to provide a single, certified weight for containers that includes the weight of the container itself, exporters are not legally responsible for verifying the weight of the container.

Three Great Lakes shipping organizations are urging the U.S. Coast Guard to reverse “glaring errors” that will sharply increase pilotage fees during the annual navigation season that started with Monday’s reopening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The mega-ships that container lines have been ordering and deploying on the Asia-Europe trade over the last four years don’t offer the cost savings their owners had counted on realizing, a top executive with a container ship owner and charterer said here Monday.

The European Shippers’ Council has urged the EU to "abolish" completely rather than modify ocean carriers’ pricing system of general rate increases.

Compliance with the new container weight verification rule that will be imposed on July 1 is beginning to crystallize around two key points for shippers: What is the carrier cut-off time for submission of the Verified Gross Mass, and will boxes without the VGM be stopped at the gate?

Spot freight rates from Shanghai to the West Coast hit a record low this week, dropping to $761 per 40-foot container.

CMA CGM on Friday announced its debut in the intra-Mediterranean trade with a dedicated direct service between nine southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East ports.

APM Terminals-operated Pipavav Port’s efforts to grow container volumes received a big push earlier this week when the INDFEX, or India-Far East Express, consortium introduced a regular weekly call at the minor facility on India’s west coast.

Forwarders are reporting a growing number of enquiries for zero freight rates on container shipments from Asia to North Europe, even as spot rates on the trade and on Asia-Mediterranean this week matched the lowest levels ever recorded.

CMA CGM is accelerating its expansion in West Africa, introducing a new fleet, extending coverage and upgrading an existing line, building on its extensive ocean service and inland transport corridors into the hinterland.

Shippers seeking to avoid supply chain disruption on July 1 when a new container weight rule takes effect need to be mindful of one key fact irrespective of what they may or may not be hearing from government enforcement agencies: No matter what country a ship is departing from, container carriers cannot load a container for which it has not received a verified gross mass declaration from the shipper.

The Korea Development Bank is giving Hyundai Merchant Marine some breathing room on its debts after other creditors of the container line rejected its offer to reschedule debt, edging the company closer to a potential bankruptcy.

Hanjin Shipping will replace its joint pendulum service connecting the U.S. West Coast to Asia and the Mediterranean with an exclusive Hanjin-supplied service as the carrier restructures its network in the face of surplus capacity and weak demand.

NileDutch, a specialized West Africa container line, has acquired the Europe to West Africa services and operations of independent Maersk Line subsidiary Safmarine.

The Obama Administration has made it easier for container services calling the United States to add Cuba as port of call, a small step in unleashing container trade between the two countries that has been stymied by a 56-year trade embargo.

Exports of Brazilian beef jumped by more than a quarter in February year-over-year, which bodes well for the country’s exporters who have already been forecasting a bumper year ahead because of the weak national currency and the lifting of export bans.

The global idle container ship fleet has soared to an all-time high, with rising numbers of larger ships unemployed, driven by a widening demand-supply gap,

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The U.S. Coast Guard shrugged off suggestions that the rollout of a controversial new container weight regulation is mired in confusion and concern at a congressional hearing Tuesday.

A group of 49 shippers associations and supply chain stakeholders is calling on the U.S. Coast Guard to leave unchanged the existing processes for finding and transmitting cargo weight information.

The Asia-Europe container trade faces volatile spot freight rates and sluggish traffic growth through 2016, according to Drewry Shipping Consultants.

South Korea’s shipping lines are adding services to Indochina in order to meet current demand and future growth as China’s economic expansion slows and other Northeast Asia economies reach maturation.

The trans-Atlantic built on its reputation as one of the few reliable trades in a troubled container shipping market in 2015, but it faces tough challenges this year that might tarnish its image.

Capt. Chester “Chet” I. Hopkins III, a longtime maritime executive whose posts included vice president of operations at CMA CGM, died Thursday at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. He was 75.

Atlantic Container Line will maintain its twice-weekly service at the Port of Halifax with ACL’s new G4 container/roll-on, roll-off ships, under a new contract that runs through 2022.

Trans-Pacific spot rates this week followed the lead of the Asia-Europe trades and approached record lows, most likely signaling yet another year of overcapacity problems in the major east-west trade lanes.

Two people died after a helicopter of Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration crashed as it left a grounded T.S. Lines container ship after dropping off environmental inspectors Thursday, according to the Taipei Times, a local news organization.

Spot rates on the Asia-Europe and Asia-Mediterranean trades this week edged closer to the record lows set last year, according to the latest reading of the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index.