Container Shipping News

The further deterioration in ocean reliability can be seen in vessel bunching this week at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, where 20 container ships were waiting at anchor as of Monday.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on demand in the United States and the Caribbean and Central America caused two-way trade between the regions to contract in the first nine months of 2020.

A series of developments over the past roughly five years has put shippers in the most disadvantageous position in regard to pricing power that they have perhaps ever faced.

Automation, self-invoicing bolster traditional third-party payment audit model

An intra-Asian trade pact, likely to be ratified next year, will cut or eliminate tariffs, harmonize rules of origin regulations, and deepen regional supply chains.

CMA CGM on Dec. 4 will launch Seapriority Express from Yantian to Los Angeles with guaranteed equipment availability and priority loading in China, and chassis availability in Southern California.

US federal maritime regulator’s decision to increase scrutiny of container lines is part of a larger global effort to monitor how carriers are behaving.

Shippers shouldn’t expect carriers to easily agree to increasing their minimum quantity commitments (MQC) within trans-Pacific service contracts, said Philip Damas, head of Drewry Supply Chain Advisors

Yang Ming has joined the growing list of container lines to offering a digital quoting and booking channel, with its use of software from BlueX Trade also a sign that this trend is taking root in Asia.

The FMC’s order drew immediate support from organizations representing truckers and agricultural exporters, who have testified about carrier practices they say contribute to port congestion and bottlenecks in the international supply chain.

California agricultural exporters say failing to deliver their products on time to overseas customers can result in buyers attempting to “wiggle out” of contracts that contain firm deadlines.

The US Federal Maritime Commission has rejected an argument from container lines that it lacks the authority to hear the American Trucking Associations’ complaint over so-called merchant haulage moves.

Indian shippers are preparing for other carriers to levy equipment surcharges for US-bound cargoes after Mediterranean Shipping Co. said it will do so starting Dec. 3.

While not as high as their prior forecast, shippers in the eastbound trans-Pacific should still expect service contract rates next spring above current levels because carriers will continue their policy of tight capacity management, Drewry says.

Zim this week announced new Asia-Australia and US-Mexico services and said another new service announcement would come soon.

Feeder vessels are seeing over 48 hours berthing delay in Colombo and nearly 36 hours in Singapore, lowering the number of possible voyages and raising costs.

By giving customers a chance to designate shipments for delivery on ships generating fewer emissions than those powered by bunker fuel, CMA CGM is able to capitalize on its unique assets: LNG-powered ships

DCSA and BIC have built a database of 11,000 depots, container yards, maintenance and repair vendors, and other supply chain container facilities in 160 countries.

A coalition of stakeholders says they will consider calling for an update of the Shipping Act of 1984 next year after asking the FMC for more immediate relief on detention and demurrage charges in the US’s two largest port complexes.

Many trans-Pacific shippers still have contract rates far below current spot rates, and while they cannot necessarily ship all their cargo on those low rates and at the same time get the space and equipment they need, they still do benefit.

Benefitting from equipment shortages in Asia and tight vessel capacity, NVOs continue to gain market share, but it’s the mid-size NVOs who are gaining at the fastest pace.

The sustained demand for Asian exports is worsening an equipment imbalance that has built steadily through the peak season on the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trades.

Moody’s Investors Service’s upgrade of the container shipping industry comes after Drewy last month upgraded its own 2020 profit expectation for the industry by 16 percent to $11 billion.

If creditors reject the restructuring and PIL is liquidated, it could be the biggest container line failure since the collapse of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping in 2016, although its impact is likely to be significantly less.

US imports from Asia increased more than 10 percent in October, with forwarders forecasting only a modest slowdown in growth through January

Cyber attacks on companies in the global logistics industry are an ever-present threat, but container lines and software providers say hosting systems in the cloud helps combat the threat and aid in recovery.

Retailers say the record peak season of 2020 will be followed by lower year-over-year import growth in the next few months, with the strength of the US economic recovery next year dependent on progress controlling coronavirus disease 2019.

Cloud computing is ubiquitous in the world of commerce, and that’s spread in recent years to container lines, which are using a migration to platforms like Microsoft Azure to develop products quickly and then scale them back without committing resources to a server infrastructure.

Evergreen Line’s ad-hoc service, which connects Asia with the US East Coast via the Suez Canal, is helping e-commerce shippers in the greater Baltimore area meet demand, said William P. Doyle, executive director at Maryland Port Administration.

Trans-Pacific carriers, including those offering premium services, have been unable to fulfill all of their bookings in recent weeks due to the container shortage in Asia.

Matson says e-commerce demand for expedited Asian service will remain high even when the impact of the pandemic COVID-19 recedes.

US agricultural exporters fear that even if they pay higher shipping rates, carriers will still turn down their bookings because liners can generate much higher revenue by using the containers for US imports from Asia.

Twill started as Maersk’s play in the neutral digital forwarding space, but it has shifted its focus to funnel small shipper volumes into Maersk’s logistics and vessel operations network.

Equipment shortages coincide with a recovery in regional economies and the shift of production to other regional countries due to the China-US trade spat.

Maersk’s integrator strategy is not affecting the carrier’s forwarder customers in a universal way, since the various elements of the transformation impact different sized intermediaries in varying ways.

The busiest US Gulf Coast ports saw only a small decline in throughput during the first seven months of the year despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer demand in the US and abroad.

The disruption and unpredictability caused by the pandemic earned trans-Pacific carriers some early 2020 patience from their customers, but that goodwill is fading as service and price diverge sharply as contract talks near.

Although economic forecasts point to a possible weakening in consumer demand, carriers are expected to continue the capacity management discipline they have displayed all year to prevent rate destruction in the trans-Pacific trades

Alternatives to expensive air freight have been available on the trans-Pacific for years, but as space constraints make air cargo an increasingly unreliable option, a new expedited ocean product will soon be launched on the trans-Atlantic.

US exporters are crying foul as at least one trans-Pacific carriers has begun turning down shipments of low-revenue agricultural exports in order to expedite the return of empty containers to Asian load ports to carry much higher-paying US imports of consumer merchandise.