Container lines

With growth in trade between Asia and North America projected to continue at a slow, steady pace in 2020, container carriers will be focused on keeping a floor on rates and recouping the added cost of low-sulfur fuels.

Carriers and other stakeholders have seemingly had ample time to prepare for IMO 2020. As the implementation clock ticks down to Jan. 1, JOC.com takes a look at the state-of-play, including a host of lingering questions, not least of which include the cost and availability of compliant fuels.

The FMC exemption is part of a broader effort to reduce filing requirements related to freight transportation long after trucking companies and railroads were released from the burden of filing tariffs with the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1994.

The survey found that 63 percent of quotes provided by forwarders were not instant, with manually generated quotes taking an average of 122 hours from the time a request was made.

Trans-Pacific carriers are on pace to blank a record number of sailings when factories in Asia close for the Lunar New Year beginning Jan. 25, 2020, as the downward trend in US imports from Asia is expected to continue through the first quarter of next year.

Cargo no-shows are down 75 percent on freight booked via the Maersk Spot guaranteed online booking platform, according to the container carrier.

Despite retailers’ expectations that a front-loading of imports to avoid now-canceled tariffs that would have gone into effect Dec. 15 would drive up volumes last month, US imports from Asia fell for the second straight month.

A number of ocean carriers are adjusting their detention and demurrage fees in the next 30 days, causing shippers to pay more for these penalties being reviewed by the Federal Maritime Commission.

Hapag-Lloyd has turned to Blume Global, which supplies a range of industry brand names, to help digitally manage its North American door moves.

Singapore-based container line ONE is the seventh carrier to provide guaranteed digital contracts through NYSHEX, which seeks to resolve the systemic issue of shippers making multiple bookings and carrier overbooking.

Despite attempts to set its own decarbonization agenda, shipping could find itself included — very reluctantly — in Europe’s emissions trading system.

The world’s largest container line is headlong into a business transformation that’s highly visible, partly of its own doing and partly due to the increased scrutiny such a change by a market leader brings.

Australian shippers are taking a wait-and-see approach to a review by the country’s competition watchdog on whether to continue the class exemption for container shipping companies from competition laws. The head of the government panel says those exemptions are becoming “harder to justify.”

The double-digit spot rate hike on Asia-US this past week was due largely to the implementation of low-sulfur fuel surcharges. Carriers can take heart, for now, from their ability to make December’s interim LSFO surcharges stick as they prepare for permanent surcharges after the Jan. 1 implementation of IMO 2020.

The addition of Feedertech to the DP World portfolio of regional shortsea and feeder carriers enables the port operator to improve its control beyond the terminal.

Much of the attention in the run-up to IMO 2020 has been on the immediate impact of the mandate, but there are some longer-term considerations that warrant examination.

The Indian government is closely scrutinizing terminal handling charges -- perhaps the most controversial of all ancillary charges levied by carriers -- as they typically vary widely from terminal to terminal within a port and from port to port within a region.

An Arctic routing translates to 24-25 days of sailing versus a 34-35 day transit via the Suez. That provides an opportunity to not only profit from -- but also further contribute to -- global warming.

The extent to which US retailers rebuild their inventories post-Christmas will provide a hint as to how consumers will respond to mixed economic signals and higher prices on some Chinese goods.

Maersk is dealing with its second high-profile executive departure in just the past two weeks with the news CFO Carolina Dybeck Happe is leaving to take the same position with GE.

Carrier rankings in the eastbound trans-Pacific show no year-over-year change as container lines operate cautiously in a slow-growth market.

Zim, pointing to cost efficiencies gained through its partnership with the 2M Alliance, navigated a market rife with uncertainties to post slight Q3 increases in net profit and revenues.

Pacific International Lines is expanding its weekly Vietnam service to the US with the addition of a second call in Vietnam amid a double-digit jump in eastbound container volumes from the southeast Asian country.

Most major carriers and some freight forwarders have announced their own bunker adjustment factor (BAF) formulas to offset higher fuel costs, but there is little commonality in pricing or even what they are called.

The second straight weekly decline in spot rates in the eastbound Pacific seems to show that the peak shipping season was uneventful -- and that the 25 percent tariffs on $300 billion of imports from China due to go into effect Dec. 15 is having no significant impact on freight volumes.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. is bringing in ex-Maersk COO Soren Toft not because they’ve been unsuccessful, but rather because they know they need an outsider’s view to maintain that success as they enter their second half-century of existence.

The industry’s pivot to scrubbers is a gambit not just in that it hinges on high-sulfur bunker fuel prices staying significantly lower than low-sulfur fuels, but that regulators won’t further restrict scrubbers as environmentalists raise alarms.

Maersk continues to improve its profitability, helped by falling bunker prices and a greater focus on capacity management.

Declining imports from China are dragging down container volumes in the eastbound trans-Pacific, and if inventory levels remain higher than usual, a weak Lunar New Year month in January is possible.

Through a partnership with the software provider BlueX Trade, the Taiwan-based container carrier will allow shippers and non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOCCs) to book space digitally “within minutes,” the companies said Tuesday.

The man leading the decarbonization charge at Maersk abruptly leaves the company, days before the world’s largest carrier will release its third-quarter earnings.

For the world’s largest container carrier, embarking on a radical departure from its traditional business model while simultaneously leading a historic quest to decarbonize shipping represents a level of risk-taking and ambition without equal in today’s industry.

Despite reporting a profitable second quarter, the Japanese container carrier has reduced its full-year earnings forecast by nearly one-third, citing concerns over a worsening global economic environment and an expected increase in bunker costs.

Even before Wednesday’s announcement canceling the Nov. 15 Apec meeting in Chile, footwear importers were warned their industry would continue to encounter a drumbeat of uncertainty and possibly higher duty rates.

Income gains from international routes operated by Cosco Shipping Lines and OOCL in the third quarter came despite the average China Containerized Freight Index falling 1.7 percent between July and September.

A seeming shift in philosophy among a number of key players in the container trade when it comes to orderbooks is about to change the competitive dynamics in the main deep-sea trades.

Spot rates on the eastbound Pacific stabilized as carriers prepare for a possible spike in imports from China next month ahead of the next round of tariffs scheduled to take effect Dec. 15 in US-China trade war.

Rates on Asia–Europe have edged upwards and volume on the trade continues to grow in an apparent contradiction of the gloomy trading environment.

Imports of household products from Asia increased just 0.6 percent through August because of US-China trade war. But with China’s dominant role in that sector and number two Vietnam at capacity, there will be no significant shift in sourcing away from China.

Forty-seven of the top 50 global transportation providers saw revenues rise in 2018, benefitting from a strong global economic growth and growing anticipation of reciprocal tariffs between the United States and China.