Container lines

Maersk's annoucement that it has used the start-up software provider to build its new e-commerce interface makes two points that all stakeholders in container shipping should note.

Technology, and in particular visibility and cargo track/trace tech, offers a multitude of benefits, including improved efficiency. But along with a monetary cost/benefit analysis, potential users should ask if they are willing to accept any operational adjustments that will be required to use it.

Shippers have long pushed back against index-linked contracts, due to low rates from chronic overcapacity, but the methodology at the core of Xeneta’s new index might satisfy shippers — as well as solve several business operation problems.

The world’s largest container carrier this week handled a factory-stuffed, export consignment of refrigerated and dry cargo via India’s eastern port of Haldia to various destinations.

Ocean carriers have begun investing directly in start-ups, and in some cases deploying these solutions more broadly. Furthermore, as the tech sector worked through initial roadblocks, the market for sensor technology to track international freight has been steadily warming the last two years, as shippers seek more-accurate and real-time information.

Jacques R. Saade took a regional carrier to a Top 3 global operator over the course of his life.

Several factors, including mega-ships deployed, North Asia congestion, rising bunker fuel prices, and the impact of Trump administration tariffs, are compromising schedule integrity in the trans-Pacific.

CMA CGM believes expanding into land routes with supply chain services is the key to maintaining growth following the consolidation of the container shipping market.

Maersk's APM Terminals unit believes the authorized economic operator designation will substantially enhance its freight-handling efficiency and decrease operating costs, among other benefits.

Ocean carriers have announced a wide range of surcharges in recent months, and while the market is dubious, the carriers show no sign of retreat.

Having filled staff shortages at its US call centers and improved data integrity, the new Japanese liner company Ocean Network Express is providing beneficial cargo owners with the level of service they rightfully demand, but CEO Jeremy Nixon said carriers will struggle to implement meaningful peak-season surcharges this fall.

With manufacturing sectors in both nations in a strong uptrend, and China’s middle class expanding while US consumer spending is recovering after a long hiatus, only a full-bore trade war could deflect accelerating container trade between the two economic giants.

Liner shipping’s current exemption from anti-trust rules ends in 2020 and as part of its assessment of whether to grant another five-year block exemption order, the European Commission has called for feedback from those in the container supply chain.

SM Line said growing volume in the second half of the year should return rates to a level that covers operation costs.

In a strongly worded letter, Nik Delmeire, secretary general of the European Shippers Council (ESC), said container lines announced almost simultaneously that they would be applying a surcharge, which the ESC viewed as “tantamount to price signaling..."

Known as Eagle GO Guaranteed, APL is extending the service to Asia-Europe and Asia-Mediterranean trades, following a successful implementation of the shipping option on the trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic, and Oceania routes.

The increase in the price of bunker fuel, driven by crude oil’s 2017 to 2018 surge, is real. But beyond that ocean carriers face a tough sell with shippers regarding the inclusion of other surcharges, given spare capacity and a continued competitive market for shipper business.

The tech enhancements could have potential benefits for importers in terms of better visibility of their cargo from the vessel discharge process to the out gate process, and for exporters in terms of better gauging the best time to deliver laden boxes to terminals.

Shippers using the BoxTech database to track container weight and other information will get greater reach through the database, which now contains information on 40 percent of the world’s containers after Mediterranean Shipping Co. added its information.

The ocean carrier’s Ze Box venture capital unit has signed a memorandum of understanding with PSA unboXed, the external innovation and corporate venture capital arm of Singapore’s PSA International.

Dozens of shippers have complained for months about the Asia-east coast of South America trade lane’s lack of space.

One group views the cabotage regulation change as an opportunity to lower domestic logistics cost and drive growth in India; the other, a domestic short-sea operators group, argues container line costs, port costs, inadequate infrastructure, and planning are hurting its transhipment business, not cabotage restricton.

Ocean carriers’ fixed costs rose in the first quarter, and surcharges ensued. However, the hikes occur even as the surplus capacity issue lingers, prompting debate regarding whether carriers can maintain the surcharges.

Maersk officials said the ocean carrier views Nepal as a long-term trade partner, and that establishment of a full-fledged office is essential to improving supply chain efficiency and expanding its footprint in the market.

Concerning the peak season fee, at the same time that Hapag-Lloyd added a $1 fuel surcharge, the ocean carrier surprised the market with a peak season surcharge of $55 per TEU that it said will be levied from June 1 on all trades out of China.

Rodolphe Saadé, group CEO of CMA CGM, announced the surcharge along with first-quarter results, which saw revenue surge. Despite that increase in demand, fuel costs resulted in a $77-million net loss for the quarter.

However, freight forwarders and shippers said they did not expect the disappearance of two carrier’s trans-Atlantic services to have much impact on capacity on the United States-Northern Europe route.

With such a sharp increase in bunker fuel prices that dragged carriers into a loss-making first quarter, it is no surprise that Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Co. will levy an emergency bunker surcharge from June 1.

Canada's strong economic fundamentals, adequate transport infrastructure, large population close to key ports, and Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement implementation, among other factors, point to a strong trade performance in the immediate years ahead.

With a strong economy and fashion in vogue, US imports should be on the rise.

Reluctance to embrace new ways of doing business is holding back container shipping, executives said at a Hamburg shipping conference.

After more than a year of year-over-year negative comparisons since the Hanjin bankruptcy, trans-Pacific spot rates to the East Coast reached parity with the same week a year ago, and almost reached parity to the West Coast, indicating that spot rates have returned to normal seasonal trends.

Although volumes and rates on the Asia to east coast South America trade are rising, capacity is not keeping pace, and one substantive business model reason may be at the heart of why ocean carriers are reluctant to ramp up service.

A sharp increase in fuel prices is placing carriers under pressure, and they've responded with rate increases planned for June 1.

Amid what the company called challenging market conditions, Maersk’s CEO said the first-quarter performance was “unsatisfactory," but the report was not without its positives; the company underscored that it has implemented initiatives to improve profitability and reiterated its 2018 earnings guidance.

The more that blockchain becomes understood, the more conceptually, at least, it fits hand in glove with international logistics. But actually transitioning logistics to the paradise of transactions being recorded instantly and efficiently is proving to be quite a formidable task.

Beneficial cargo owners will enjoy lower ocean freight rates in their 2018-2019 service contracts, but the total all-in charge for ocean, truck, and bunker fuel costs will be higher than last year.

As shipping rates into Mexcio drop and US trucking rates rise, shippers are routing cargo directly through Mexican ports and along Mexican roads, bypassing US West Coast ports.

Higher costs have weighed on results, slightly offsetting the positive impact of stronger volumes. Still, a key CEO offered an encouraging evaluation regarding the second half of 2018.

The latest move in the past three weeks firmly reversed a down trend that began immediately after the Lunar New Year pulled prices down to a level not seen in more than a year.