Container Shipping News

UTi Worldwide says it is raising prices for shippers after the global freight forwarder saw its profit margins squeezed amid rapid growth in demand in the company’s fiscal first quarter.

Fairstar Heavy Transport has ordered two heavy-lift ships from China’s Guangzhou Shipyards International in a deal worth around $204 million.

Danaos, the Greek container ship charter owner, swung to a $101.1 million first quarter net loss from a $20 million profit a year ago due to losses on interest rate swaps and the cost of cancelling an

The clean-trucks program and other pollution-reduction measures slashed harmful diesel emissions at Los Angeles last year, according to the port's 2009 air emissions inventory.

Ceres Terminals signed a lease for 12 additional acres at the Port of Baltimore’s Dundalk Marine Terminal, the Maryland Port Administration said Thursday.

CMA CGM announced its West Africa Express [WAX] service to Asia will call at the South African port of Durban.

Two vessels hijacked by Somali pirates were retaken on Wednesday in separate incidents and a third vessel managed to avoid capture when it outran pirates.

Horizon Lines elected three Class II directors at its annual meeting Wednesday and re-elected CEO Charles G. Raymond as its chairman.

Ocean carriers have absorbed nearly 100 container ships with a combined capacity of 554,000 20-foot equivalent units by introducing extra slow steaming on key liner trade routes, according to a new re

Inventories at Cisco Systems increased 16.4 percent in value, to $1.3 billion, in its most recent quarter ending May 1, the company said.

Steel shipments through the Port of Houston hit a 12-month high in April as container volumes dropped 14 percent from the comparable month in 2009.

Maersk Line is offering shippers the option of paying a fee for priority loading of their cargo on a particular vessel on many global services, except those to and from North America.

Hapag-Lloyd plans to raise freight rates on major trade lanes covering the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, starting in early July.

Six international engineering companies submitted bids Tuesday to dredge an area of the Panama Canal’s man-made Gatun Lake that is central to the massive project to upgrade the canal and its cap

Orient Overseas Container Lines took delivery Tuesday of the last in a line of 16 vessels with a capacity of 4,578 20-foot equivalent container units that it ordered from Samsung Heavy Industries.

The European Union is launching an investigation into whether the largest container lines have engaged in price-fixing, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Net profit for the Shipping Corporation of India fell 60 percent to $82 million in the year ending March 31 as the global economic downturn hit the national carrier.

The three carriers that belong to the AAUS Group — APL, Hamburg Sud, Hapag-Lloyd and Hyundai Merchant Marine — are teaming up with Maersk Line to add a peak-season service string to the tw

Hanjin Shipping said Tuesday it will start converting its fleet of refrigerated containers this month over to what it calls “eco-friendly” reefers.

Agriculture interests reaped the benefits of a bumper export market in the first quarter. Now they hope to sustain it.

Apple’s unveiling of its iPad this year prompted widespread debate about the impact of the device on the future of book publishing, but its immediate impact on shipping was unquestioned and very

The U.S. cotton industry expects to have a strong 2010 with planted acreage growing over 2009, which will mean higher production in a harvest that goes from July into next January.

The footwear and apparel industries are gaining traction in 2010, but sellers and manufacturers realize they’ll have to walk before they run.

Hayden Swofford hopes he never sees another year like 2009. Aided by a weakened dollar, the forest products exporters he represents had plenty of cargo to sell.

When the ratio of U.S.

Remember “green shoots?” A year ago, U.S. importers and exporters were scouring economic indicators for any signs of improvement in dismal market conditions.

Capital goods make up 40 percent of U.S. exports, and industrial machinery represents 57 percent of the capital goods shipped abroad, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.

There was a time when Smithfield Foods was famous only for the smoked hams it made in its namesake Virginia city.

When the 2008-09 recession hammered consumer spending in the U.S., analysts pondered whether its length and persisting unemployment would permanently change consumer habits.

Do shippers really care if their goods move by contract or tariff?

For toy manufacturers selling in the world’s largest consumer market, 2010 is all about mobility and affordability.

Rising volumes and rates are starting to yield profits for container ship lines, but the industry still faces a vexing problem: what to do with all those ships ordered a few years ago.

Tipplers downsized during the recession. When you lose your job, you look for any way you can to save money.

Stanley Furniture’s decision to close its plant in the small town that bears its name fell like a hammer blow on southern Virginia and resounded across an industry increasingly moving overseas.

U.S. chemical exporters are optimistic about the future.

Automakers and their suppliers are steering out of a recession that took them on their bumpiest road in decades.

In good times and bad, ocean carriers look to scrap metals and wastepaper to fill their vessels in the export trades, and 2009 was no exception.

U.S. imports of steel mill products increased in April over March by 0.9 percent, reflecting steady but slow improvement in market conditions.

Orient Overseas Container Line effective July 1 will increase its rates from Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East to Australia by $250 per-TEU.

The Antwerp Port Authority acquired a minority stake in a Belgian inland container terminal outside the port area that will be operated by DP World, the global ports group.