Container lines

CMA CGM said its acquisition of terminal assets in the key New York–New Jersey container gateway was designed around flexibility for shippers, not a bet on permanent shifts in US coastal market share.

US retailers are forecasting a significant decline in import volumes at least through April as much of the holiday and winter merchandise was shipped earlier than usual this year.

New York–New Jersey is CMA CGM’s largest gateway on the US East Coast, and the carrier intends to further develop calls in the New York area for which the newly acquired terminals will provide future capacity.

Sources say all major liners are facing challenges finding enough cargo to fill export space allocations for India and, as such, freight rates are already at near pre-pandemic levels.

Declining freight volumes and spot rates at pre-pandemic levels indicate the trans-Pacific will experience a “hard landing” in the coming months, an industry analyst said.

Ocean Alliance members are shifting post-Panamax ships away from the trans-Pacific and Asia–Europe trades to the trans-Atlantic amid buoyant demand and rates.

An economic partnership agreement signed earlier this year between India and the United Arab Emirates is driving new trade opportunities, prompting ocean carriers to boost service between the two countries.

Freight rates in many eastbound trans-Pacific service contracts have been renegotiated lower as carriers seek to prevent customers from bailing on them to take advantage of plunging spot rates.

Months of negotiations by Europe Union executive bodies over how shipping will be included in the Emissions Trading System have ended in agreement, with member states to have the final say in mid-December.

All supply chains converge at the marine terminal, so facilitating and protecting fluidity through the terminal is the key to unlocking broader supply chain effectiveness, writes JOC’s Peter Tirschwell.

OneRail has channeled the need for shippers to access final-mile capacity and service level consistency into a large venture capital funding round.

Sharply falling rates and demand signal an end to the extreme profitability enjoyed by carriers over the last two years, according to analysts.

Vessel on-time performance to US ports continued to improve in October, although carriers in the eastbound trans-Pacific underperformed global schedule reliability.

The ability of ocean carriers to manage their growing supply of excess capacity is becoming weaker by the week as supply chain bottlenecks ease and global economic headwinds strengthen.

CMA CGM continued its run of extreme profitability in the third quarter, strengthening its already solid balance sheet and slashing debt levels, but it warned that economic headwinds are strengthening.

Retailers that have seen final-mile costs more than double during the pandemic are increasingly making investments in their last-leg delivery networks.

If there’s one lesson from the pandemic, it’s that working to ensure efficient container flow through US ports during sustained cargo surges must be the highest priority, whether it’s achievable or not, writes JOC’s Peter Tirschwell.

The expanding platform provided by shippers seeking green transport has allowed Maersk to ramp up its ocean sustainability efforts, with greening landside logistics the next target.

The resumed service at India’s VOC comes as the port has embarked on a raft of new infrastructure projects to position itself as an alternative transshipment hub to Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port.

The highs for the container shipping industry, as measured by profits and pricing power, hit atmospheric levels, raising questions of just how steep a fall is in store.

Europe’s executive bodies head into their final round of negotiations to set the parameters governing shipping’s inclusion in the regional Emissions Trading System with industry stakeholders watching closely.

The fund is one of several measures taken by South Korea’s government to help the country’s shipping sector weather the downturn in container trade.

Maersk and MSC have suspended a trans-Pacific US East Coast service as freight rates and volumes continue to slump as 2022 winds down.

While a stabilization of rates on the trades out of India was always in the cards, the speed at which the market turned has caught carriers off guard, says the head of the country’s container shipping lobby group.

Developing green ocean trade lanes will become increasingly complex as the number of stakeholders increases and cooperation deepens across the value chain.

Plunging imports from Asia in October, normally one of the busiest months of the year, signals a continued “flattening” of eastbound trans-Pacific demand in the coming months, according to Ben Hackett, principal at Hackett Associates.

New energy ratings for ships to be imposed next year are a meaningful step toward decarbonizing the maritime industry and should not be a “box-ticking exercise,” according to Maersk.

The new Maersk service is expected to drive more cargo volumes for India's Mundra port, which has already ousted JNPT as the country's busiest container gateway.

Despite a record nine-month result, carrier Zim has downgraded its full-year guidance amid rate declines that are rapidly deepening of late.

A new production facility in South Dakota will supply Maersk with 100,000 tons of green methanol a year as the carrier signs yet another deal to lock in the supply of alternative fuels.

Aggressive curtailing of capacity by container lines on the trans-Pacific has done little to prevent shippers from forecasting sizable contract rate reductions next spring.

A US furniture importer aims to show that Hamburg Sud’s decision to drop its business following the threat of a lawsuit amounts to retaliation under OSRA-22.

Hapag-Lloyd’s CEO says the slide in ocean rates coupled with weakening demand would likely cause pop-up carriers — mainly intra-Asia lines that entered the trans-Pacific trade when rates hit historic highs — to pull out.

The carrier said it aims to tackle the challenging outlook by securing high-yield cargo to maximize profitability and improve operational efficiency to cut costs.

US containerized imports are expected to decline through the first quarter of 2023 at a faster clip than retailers forecasted just months ago, with consumers concerned over rising prices and interest rates.

There appears to be little that ocean carriers can do to stem an Asia-Europe spot market in free-fall as economic conditions deteriorate and freight volumes continue to soften.

The accelerated blankings in the eastbound trans-Pacific come after US imports in September and October “can at best be described as a complete collapse in demand growth,” according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis.

Evergreen Marine has purchased the equity shares held by subsidiaries in its transshipment hub in Panama that serves both Asia and South America services into the US East Coast.

Matson’s CEO expects to see even more capacity reductions and schedule changes in the next two quarters to meet lower consumer demand in the expedited market, especially as air cargo and conventional ocean market rates continue to fall.

Carriers are trying to work out the additional costs per container of complying with Europe’s ETS, but there is little clarity over how the rule will be applied with less than eight weeks to go before implementation.