Container lines

The transportation giant this week inaugurated a new cold storage center within its container freight station site at Ponneri, on the outskirts of Chennai in South India.

There are good reasons why participants at the 3rd Annual JOC Gulf Shipping Conference in Houston this week are bullish on US Gulf ports: the region’s growth is outpacing other US coasts, Asian import growth is promising, and the potential exists for Gulf ports to funnel a rebound in Latin American trade. Those are three legitimate growth engines and the resin boom has not even begun yet.

The decline in US exports took place even before trade war rhetoric between the United States and China began to heat up.

The annual blanket of fog has been wreaking havoc at the busy ports of Shanghai and Ningbo.

There is no stopping the decline in the Asia-North Europe spot rate, which is now at its lowest level in more than a year. With the market deep in the slow season and capacity still coming online, shippers are not in a mood to pay more on the spot market.

Shippers tracking the Maersk-IBM blockchain project to see if it yields real benefits in helping them monitor cargo movement could soon get a glimpse of whether it does. But they can also expect trucking rate increases and no near-term resolution to the problem of getting truck capacity.

The April 1 launch of new carrier Ocean Network Express is experiencing booking delays in some jurisdictions as cargo from three carriers migrates to the new network.

Shippers looking to send goods from Latin America west — especially from Mexico — to China and the Far East, and in the other direction, have a growing list of options after the launch of three new services.

The new order for mega-ships gives Hyundai Merchant Marine the container shipping industry's third-largest orderbook.

The service is the latest by an ocean carrier seeking to develop time-definite business arrangements with importers of certain products when they have a critical mass of shippers at designated destinations.

It is the slow post-Lunar New Year season, but spot rates are now at a 12-month low, with China manufacturing production also starting to slow down.

Neither country has listed a deadline for tariff implementation, hence the situation remains dynamic and fluid. However, key analysts are formulating worst-case scenarios.

Maersk, which transports roughly 20 percent of India’s total container cargo, said India's strong trade uptrends came despite widespread supply chain disruptions caused by recent tax and other regulatory reforms in the country.

Equally significant, the increases pushed the spot rates above the psychologically significant $1,000 and $2,000 levels, for the West Coast and East Coast, respectively.

Maersk India has substantially expanded its end-to-end cold chain service to and from India, which has enabled domestic reefer shippers to venture into new locales.

Investigators in the inquiry, led by Commissioner Rebecca Dye, have directed carriers to provide detailed information about their detention and demurrage practices; the same is being sought from marine terminal operators.

Cosco Shipping Holdings, China's largest shipping company, has continued to aggressively expand into landside logistics, building on Beijing’s Belt and Road strategy to grow its terminal and inland footprint in Asia and Europe.

Hyundai Merchant Marine will sign an agreement to cooperate with Sinokor Merchant Marine and Heung-A Shipping for intra-Asia routes to facilitate the anticipated merger of the latter two companies’ container shipping operations.

After six years of losses, the container shipping industry ended 2017 with a profit of about $7 billion. Financial reports of the 13 carriers do show improvement but do not yet reflect a full recovery — a recovery that should continue in 2018, given the strengthening global economy, unless political issues intervene.

The regional carrier's new service will offer fewer port calls — enabling it to build a larger buffer into its schedule.

Anthony Chiarello, president and CEO of US domestic ocean carrier TOTE, said he will retire this summer after nearly 39 years in the maritime industry.

Rising tariffs and retaliatory measures are a threat to global trade, an alliance of shipper organizations has warned.

In theory, blockchain has the potential to enable global container carriers to create a universal, standardized, ledger system with many more efficient processes. The question is whether carriers who are fierce competitors and who do not trust each other can use a system in which trust is integral.

Rising demand on the Asia-New Zealand-Australia trade could be further boosted by China's trade dispute with the United States.

Taiwan's Yang Ming has completed a profitable 2017 on the back of a stronger container market and a recapitalization plan.

Beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) continue to enjoy low spot rates in the eastbound Pacific despite carriers’ attempts to reduce effective capacity through blank sailings. However, small and mid-size BCOs in LA-LB are paying a price for the blank sailings, as terminals cancel work shifts to save money.

The total effective tax on ocean going vessel businesses was almost 27 percent — something that discouraged business executives from investing in the sector. According to officials, the effective high tax rate also discouraged many vessel owners from registering their vessels in Bangladesh.

It has been a good year for ZIM, which has returned to profit following a huge loss-making 2016.

The heads of the IBM/Maersk joint venture said 24 companies are being onboarded with roughly 70 more in the pipeline, and are seeking to allay forwarders’ fears that the initiative is encroaching on their end-to-end supply chain services.

Capacity scheduled for deployment on the Asia-North Europe and Mediterranean trades over the next 12 weeks is well above the expected demand for the year.

US truck capacity pressure, exacerbated by the federal electronic logging device mandate, is trickling down to all modes of inland cargo transportation: railroad, drayage, and transloading and long-haul truckload. Ocean carriers are responding with a mixture of actions.

Rising demand for Europe exports in South America has pushed southbound volume ahead of the containers heading north.

Terminal operators are trying to connect with owners of cargo and improve control of the end-to-end supply chain — moves that mirror those being employed by their container line customers.

The 2M Alliance will adjust its Asia-Europe network, losing many direct calls in a revamp aimed at improving reliability.

It was the best year yet for CMA CGM as strong demand, higher rates, and a full-year contribution from APL boosted revenue and volume.

There was no sign of a peak shipping period on Asia-Europe routes in the run up to the Lunar New Year in 2018.

SM Line Corporation has again appealed to its larger compatriot rival Hyundai Merchant Marine to collaborate on trans-Pacific routes.

The bulk of regional economic fundamentals indicate a strong year is ahead for container trade, GDP growth, earnings growth, and job creation — with all of the positives that implies for lateral sectors and society.

One weekly service between South Korea and Vietnam has been cut, but it will have a negligible impact on the highly fragmented trade route.

Spot rates in the eastbound Pacific this week crashed through the psychologically important levels of $1,000 to the West Coast and $2,000 to the East Coast, despite continued growth in import volumes.