Port News

Most US ports have sufficient liquidity and debt service coverage, and should be resilient enough to handle at least a 20 percent decline in cargo volume, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

First Solar has opened a distribution center in South Carolina to handle solar panels, a growth industry in which US imports doubled last year.

US tariffs on electronics goods produced in China continue to push production and assembly of some electronics to Southeast Asia and Mexico, with the latter grabbing a growing share of laptop computers and televisions due to its proximity to the US market.

MTC Logistics’ new cold storage facility will support a major expansion of frozen food imports and exports at the Port of Mobile.

The COVID-19 lockdown in Bangladesh has shippers contending with congestion fees, while carriers push back against a government request to drop detention charges.

With tensions on the rise, groups representing ocean carriers and truck companies are open to meeting to resolve their differences on chassis.

European ports have been hit harder by blank sailings than other regions, according to a survey by the World Ports Sustainability Program and the International Association of Ports and Harbors.

While container volumes in Savannah were down a better-than-feared 6.7 percent last month, the Georgia Ports Authority is pessimistic about May and June.

Brokerage solutions maker Trucker Tools will pull parking data into an app-based platform to aid truck drivers searching for available spaces.

The Panama Canal sees COVID-19 accelerating the long-building trends of global container trade becoming more regional.

Fenix Marine Services in Los Angeles is rolling out an improved program for processing truckers at the gates, which the operator believes could set a new efficiency standard for manual terminals.

Groups representing US ports, marine terminals operators, and stevedores, tell JOC.com the federal aid via grants and loans would ensure their members can keep the nation’s containerized supply chains flowing

With larger vessels visiting the East Coast on a more frequent basis, the South Carolina Ports Authority has inked a deal to let a stevedore consortium run dock operations in Charleston.

The years-long market share bleed from North America’s traditional West Coast container gateways continued in 2019, with Savannah, Houston and Prince Rupert the main beneficiaries.

Evergreen’s new transshipment service links New Orleans, Houston, and Port Everglades with the Caribbean via the carrier’s regional hub in Colon, Panama.

The shift of Maersk Line’s South American services from Global Container Terminals’ Staten Island facility to sister company’s APM Terminals’ facility in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, highlights the cost-cutting pressures terminals face

The US Federal Maritime Commission is signaling to the industry that the fairness of detention and demurrage fees should be viewed through a lens of whether they encourage the pickup of import containers and return of empties.

The need to widen the channel gained urgency last year when a group of non-container businesses that rely on the port expressed concerns their cargoes would be squeezed by the increasing size and number of container ships moving through Houston.

DP World’s rollout this week of an online freight booking platform for forwarders continues its campaign toward broadening its reach in containerized supply chains.

A new international distribution center in Houston blends US trucking and containerized imports as less-than-truckload carrier Averitt reaches deeper into US consumer markets.

Bangladesh’s Shipping Ministry pushed customs authorities to relax rules governing what type of cargo could be moved to private off-dock space amid growing pressure to relieve congestion at Chittagong.

The trade group that represents foreign carriers in India says the latest inventory numbers at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust suggest a supply chain bottleneck of alarming proportions is beginning to take shape.

The Port of Wilmington’s refrigerated storage expansion is part of a broader effort among US Southern and mid-Atlantic ports to increase their reefer volumes by adding storage capacity and handling fruit imports from South America

The Port of Virginia will temporarily suspend container operations in the Portsmouth Marine Terminal beginning May 3, a result of the dropoff in volume due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Terminal operators are preparing now to prevent anticipated cargo surge in May and June by offering on-terminal storage space for containers carrying non-essential merchandise.

The South Carolina Ports Authority expects spring and summer import volumes to be quite depressed due to blank sailings related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The ports of Houston, Mobile, and New Orleans will likely find the strong growth they enjoyed in 2019 difficult to replicate this year as US ports confront the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on supply chains.

Under Indian government directives, terminal stakeholders have stepped up gate activity in recent days in order to avert widespread congestion developing.

Officials at the Port of New York and New Jersey say they don’t expect port marine terminals and area warehouses to experience as much of a space crunch as they and other East Coast ports were anticipating as cargo from China increases over the coming weeks.

It was a solid first quarter for Antwerp, but the production and supply chain disruption being caused by COVID-19 will be felt at the international hub in the second quarter.

The head of the Pacific Maritime Association is instructing members to report all health incidents through an online portal after ILWU workers refused to enter Terminal 18 Monday, citing fear of coronavirus contamination.

A coalition of 80 agricultural shippers is urging the Trump administration to get involved in the detention and demurrage debate now before the Federal Maritime Commission, saying the issue is even more important now amid supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Bangladesh will waive Chittagong port fees as yard storage approaches 92 percent capacity, but carriers are putting shippers on the hook for reefer-related charges.

The Alabama State Port Authority has picked an industry veteran with experience in operations at the Port of Oakland and working at ocean carriers to lead the rapidly growing Port of Mobile into the future.

California Trucking Association executive told JOC webcast last week that the issue of driver classification will continue to be the focus of legislation at the state level and is becoming even more complex even as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California is expected to rule on AB5 this summer.

BCOs and drayage truckers need to document unreasonable detention and demurrage charges, but also not contribute to the problem, speakers toldl a JOC.com webcast.

Hapag-Lloyd says it will no longer absorb a contentious per-container charge levied on ocean carriers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to raise tens of millions of dollars for road, rail, and other improvements.

The Chittagong customs office is open just two hours a day during the lockdown period and is only releasing cargoes carrying food and medicines, meaning containers carrying non-essential goods are backing up in storage.

The risk in the coming week is that more US retailers and manufacturers fail to pick up containers because warehouses are full or closed due to not being deemed essential service providers responding to coronavirus disease COVID-19.

The Port of Savannah will be closed to truckers on Saturdays this month due to blank sailings and BCOs unwilling to retrieve containers with stores and factories closed due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.