Container lines

A wave of government support measures and the rising threat of overcapacity speaks to the pain on the way, even if carriers have shown they’ve learned from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis not to pull punches when it takes to cutting capacity quickly.

PIL, which raised more than $550 million from the sale of box ships earlier this year, said it has agreed on a debt repayment holiday until the end of this year with most of its main lenders.

Blank sailings are making it difficult for ag shippers and truckers to make appointments for delivering export containers to marine terminals, and they are experiencing additional supply chain costs as well.

Cargo interests report a surge in cargo rolling at Chinese ports, which they attribute largely to unprecedented capacity reductions by carriers for this time of year.

A container line consortium that has tackled a range of shipping standards since launching in April 2019 now plans to drive adoption of electronic bills of lading, a standard that has long evaded adoption.

Expectations for capacity, demand, and pricing across transportation modes in 2020 have been shattered by the COVID‑19 pandemic, resulting in recession.

The impact of the US–China trade war and COVID-19 has resulted in a 7.8 percentage point drop in China’s market share of US imports from Asia through the first four months of 2020.

US imports from Asia declined 1.3 percent in April from the same month last year. It was the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year decline in imports in the eastbound trans-Pacific.

Retailers’ forecasts of US import volumes for the third quarter appear to indicate that the peak-shipping season this fall will be disappointing.

European ports have been hit harder by blank sailings than other regions, according to a survey by the World Ports Sustainability Program and the International Association of Ports and Harbors.

Extending penalty waivers is expected to put an end to disputes over Indian import containers that BCOs failed to collect in a timely manner because of what they say are reasons beyond their control amid the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.

As they near completion of annual service contract talks, carriers and their customers in the eastbound trans-Pacific appear to have successfully navigated potentially contentious issues involving cargo forecasting, freight rates, and volatile oil prices.

A temporary rush of imports, coupled with blank sailings in Asia, resulted in increased spot rates this week.

The accumulation of containerized cargo in some recession-hit economies could hamper equipment availability when demand begins to return over the next few months.

Given all the factors that could have led to confrontational trans-Pacific service contract negotiations this cycle, the lack of a clash points to a different future that can enable the container shipping industry to move forward.

Decades of upscaling vessel sizes and consolidation has created a landscape where the barriers of entry into the main deep-sea trades are now so high that it is next to impossible for any newcomer to truly break into those trades on a material scale.

The COVID-19 crisis will push the freight transportation industry closer to a future where digitalization is nearly omnipresent, automation is ingrained, and logistics has adapted to slower trade as the economic windfalls of globalization fade further.

Just as airlines have been able to price passenger seats by demand, carriers see similar potential in adjusting slot rates based on seasonality, supply and demand on a specific sailing, and costs associated with a specific shipment or customer.

Containers shipped from China after factories reopened in March have now arrived at European ports, but there is little volume that will follow, at least for the next three months.

From a flexibility perspective, new-Panamax vessels allow carriers to deploy the largest ships able to traverse the Panama Canal while still benefiting from economies of scale.

Carriers will blank dozens of sailings in the trans-Pacific as they anticipate a double-digit drop in imports in May and June.

The devastating impact of the US-China trade war followed by the COVID-19 destruction of consumer demand in the US will result in a dispersal of trade lanes connecting North America with growing production clusters in Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Latin America.

This year’s negotiations on trans-Pacific service contracts have been more amicable than in previous years, as both carriers and their customers face significant challenges forecasting consumer demand and oil prices.

The container shipping industry will undoubtedly do more business electronically as a result of the corona­virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but will digitalization be a force for solving longstanding problems, set the stage for disruption, or both?

The series of blank sailings is intended to shore up freight rates that have dropped to around $900-$1,000 per FEU from about $2,400 per FEU at the beginning of the year.

US exporters are incurring fees and added logistics costs throughout their supply chains as carriers disrupt sailing schedules through numerous blank sailings.

The strong growth in US resin exports of the last two years could falter in 2020 as overseas production gets cheaper due to the fall in oil prices and demand weakens amid the global recessionary pressures from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The world's second biggest container line was slowing resolving a four-day server outage at its Geneva headquarters, a disruption that has affected online processes but not the flow of its customers cargo.

Blanked sailings announced by trans-Pacific carriers demonstrate the steep decline in consumer demand for summer and back-to-school merchandise, and raise a stark warning of a possible peak-season bust later this summer.

Meditteranean Shipping Co. did not disclose in a LinkedIn post whether the outage was due to a cyber attack, but industry watchers were quick to speculate Friday morning that this was the case.

The expansion of the “Suspension of Transit” program highlights the rising demand from European and North American cargo owners to avoid demurrage fees as COVID-19 saps the need for non-essential goods.

Even as undeliverable goods begin piling up at US ports, concern is emerging that the recovery from the economic effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will be much longer and slower than initially predicted.

US imports from Asia plunged in March, and analysts are projecting double-digit percentage declines in total import volumes through at least August.

Maersk’s ability to gain greater control of shipments as they move through the supply chain is key to the largest container line transforming itself into a provider of integrated end-to-end logistics.

Singapore-based carrier ONE plans to roll out globally an electronic bill of lading through its customer portal starting in the second quarter of 2020.

As consumer demand in the US plummets due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), trans-Pacific carriers are suspending entire strings in addition to blanking additional sailings from Asia in the second quarter.

The risk in the coming week is that more US retailers and manufacturers fail to pick up containers because warehouses are full or closed due to not being deemed essential service providers responding to coronavirus disease COVID-19.

Former Lykes Bros. Steamship Line President Jim Amoss was a respected and influential advocate for the US-flag liner industry.

The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and its largest tenant, GCT Canada, agree that Vancouver risks a scenario in which marine terminals will be clogged within roughly 10 years, but they disagree on how to add capacity.

The container line offering reflects the new reality of Western importers increasingly canceling, reducing and delaying shipments as consumer consumption craters under stay-at-home safety precautions linked to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).