North American ports

February marked the sixth consecutive month of year-over-year declines in Asian imports, but those declines are being compared with the record or near-record import volumes that were posted in late 2021 and early 2022.

The bill would heighten transparency into regulatory penalties levied against ocean carriers and marine terminal operators and draw a sharp line on the involvement of China-based entities in US shipping.

Wan Hai’s two pandemic-era US East Coast services will be merged in a move designed to provide more regular capacity.

In approving the $31 billion merger, the Surface Transportation Board rejected arguments from the FMC and competing railroads that the deal would harm US ports and shippers.

The rare occurrence – in which multiple longshore labor negotiations across North America are taking place either simultaneously or nearly so — is enough to make shippers nervous, or at least wary, writes Journal of Commerce Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.

Wan Hai is now looking at a larger civil penalty than it faced nearly a year ago following an investigation into detention charges the carrier assessed in the spring of 2021.

A variety of data sources suggest it is premature to conclude that supply chain bottlenecks have reverted to their pre-COVID levels, as issues continue to be more pervasive than before the pandemic, writes analyst Jason Miller.

The Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association says the FMC’s chief administrative judge erred in issuing a summary judgement against the group because key facts are still in dispute.

Drayage software vendor PortPro is attempting to narrow the gap between the tools that port truckers and their shipper customers use with a new container milestone tracking product it has launched.

Norfolk Southern and the Port of Virginia are not only targeting importers using trans-Atlantic services from Europe and Asia, but also exporters moving goods through Memphis, such as the cotton industry.

Retailers say their main concern right now is to avoid over-ordering product from factories in Asia until they get a better handle on consumer demand later this summer.

Trucking and intermodal providers are offering discounts to secure freight in Southern California, where volumes are declining as imports from Asia fall.

The move by the carrier comes as the FMC is in the midst of a rulemaking process around detention and demurrage billing mandated by the passage of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 last June.

It is unlikely an agreement between ILWU Canada and West Coast employers will be reached before the current contract expires on March 31, sources say, as negotiations in past cycles often lasted 12 to 18 months.

Shippers struggling to manage demurrage fees and container availability information have two new options to track the status of containers at ports.

Contract negotiations between International Longshore and Warehouse Union office workers and shipping lines and terminal operators in Southern California are proceeding slowly with the June 30 deadline approaching, even as the 10-month-old ILWU dockworker negotiations drag on.

Southeast ports are handling more imports from Asia than ever, but it’s unclear how much of that growth will stick once negotiations over a new West Coast longshore contract conclude.

Technology startup Qualle is trying to overcome drayage industry inertia around matching empty import boxes with export loads outside of ports by using early-stage funding to serve every North American port market.

Although surprised by the magnitude of the January drop in vessel on-time arrivals in the trans-Pacific, analysts expect carrier performance to improve this year.

From China to West Coast labor talks to the possibility of a rate war, a number of major factors weighed heavily on trans-Pacific service contract discussions taking place on the sidelines of TPM23.

The Port of Los Angeles’ executive director acknowledged that stalled West Coast longshore labor talks are taking a toll on the port, but says the cost of shipping through California is also a big factor.

While the supply chain has mostly healed from COVID-19, the pandemic revealed the risk of relying too much on China for product sourcing, CMA CGM’s new US president told TPM23.

The South Carolina Ports Authority will be able to launch its proprietary chassis pool as scheduled in March thanks to a last-minute agreement to secure 5,000 chassis from two major equipment providers.

Encouraging carriers in their somewhat tentative bid to raise rates from recent lows are India’s trade indicators, including the country’s role as a sourcing alternative to China.

The rare joint statement comes amid growing frustration among US importers and West Coast ports that more than nine months of talks have yet to produce a new labor deal, causing a shift of cargo to ports along the East and Gulf ports.

The move by the South Carolina Ports Authority to cut hours at the Leatherman terminal comes a month after Hapag-Lloyd announced it would no longer call the facility amid an ongoing labor battle.

Rising demand from importers reckoning with the costs of detention and demurrage have fueled an $11 million investment into container management provider BlueCargo.

With just under $50 billion in fresh investments unveiled last year for electric vehicle manufacturing plants in North America, ports in the Southeast and along the Gulf Coast are expecting additional volumes to soon be moving across their docks.

Canada’s largest container port is on a growth trajectory in which it is forecast to hit capacity by the middle to end of this decade following average annual growth of 5 percent over the past 10 years.

Tradepoint Atlantic will design and construct a 500,000-square-foot warehouse distribution center that will help ease the flow of cargo through Port Tampa Bay.

Union Pacific is changing operations at its terminal outside Chicago in a bid to prevent future disruption by creating stacks for containers arriving from California, a move that will affect tens of thousands of ocean boxes per month.

The container shipping market is quickly moving on from the pandemic period and into a phase that is at once familiar but also entirely new and unpredictable, writes Peter Tirschwell.

The Georgia Ports Authority instituted evening truck gate hours at the Port of Savannah in 2021 to combat the import surge that resulted in more than 30 vessels anchored outside its Garden City terminal.

Container shipping sources in India expect an even more dramatic impact on carrier pricing power in the coming weeks as new services added recently settle into the market.

The West Coast’s share of US imports from Asia continued to erode last month as retailers shipped their discretionary cargo through East and Gulf coast ports to avoid potential disruption linked to ongoing labor talks.

Maersk’s move is part of a raft of service changes by it and other carriers as they wind down trans-Pacific vessel capacity they quickly brought on during the pandemic-driven demand surge.

Mobile’s inland intermodal reach is getting a boost from a planned $60 million investment by APM Terminals into the port’s container railyard.

In negotiations leading up to the annual service contracts that will take effect May 1, container lines and importers are trying to find a new middle ground amid uncertainty as to how strong demand will be in the second half of the year.

The Port of Charleston’s request to overturn a ruling involving container calls to the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal drew support from the US Maritime Alliance, but opposition from the International Longshoremen’s Association.

Zim’s eCommerce Baltimore Express, which makes its first US call at Baltimore, will see a capacity boost of “nearly 50 percent.”