Annual Review and Outlook

Infrastructure investments in our seaports, both on land and in the water, bolster our economy, provide job opportunities and enhance competitiveness. Port Canaveral is facing unprecedented demand for bulkhead space — the highest in the port’s 65-year history.

Port Everglades is evolving rapidly with more than $1 billion of infrastructure improvements underway or scheduled for the next five years.

Having compensatory ocean freight rates has a domino effect on our industry. When shipowners make money, ports make money, allowing ports to make significant investments in necessary infrastructure, equipment, and technology.

Our future is that of a state-of-the-art integrated gateway, which enables us to think more comprehensively about freight movement and our multimodal efforts in order to meet the industry’s changing needs.

In the face of uncertainty, it’s best to stick with fundamentals. For seaports, that means cost control and operating efficiency.

One solution for a port our size? Diversification, which is why we’re focused on offering shippers a variety of ways to access markets in this ever-changing world economy.

While increased tariffs may result in temporarily decreased volumes, we are focusing on diversifying our cargo mix as set forth in our strategic growth plan.

For those who are unable to adjust and thrive in today’s new playing field, largely characterized by ever more competitive carriers with scale advantage and fewer alliances with greater market influence, we may see further consolidation taking place or companies struggling desperately to survive.

Our response to change: Embrace it. We are committed to actively redefining the role of ports in the end-to-end supply chain by embracing our digital transformation.

We’re exploring how data sharing offers greater cargo visibility and can reduce truck turn times and yard dwell.

We will monitor the implementation of IMO 2020 to enforce a 0.5 percent global sulfur cap on the industry, as well as the growing digitalization, e-commerce, blockchain, and autonomous shipping.

Safety and zero harm remain top priorities. These core values continue to be imperative and must be an integral part of the industry’s culture, extending to all personnel, labor, operations, cargo, and the environment.

While ports will always face new challenges associated with supporting evolving and complex global supply chains, dominant themes continue to be gateway performance and capacity.

Emerging technologies are not limited to ship design and operation. They must also be used to make seagoing careers more attractive.

There may be a shortage of reefer containers in the year ahead.

the South Carolina Ports Authority is working to finalize major infrastructure projects that will enhance our operating efficiency and assimilate anticipated Southeast regional growth.

2019 will see a continued embrace of information technology to facilitate cargo transportation. All sectors of the marine cargo-handling industry should adapt their operations to utilize these tools that are becoming more widespread.

Canada’s international trade is growing, which has a direct impact on regions like Metro Vancouver, home of Canada’s largest port.

The truck driver shortage will continue to be a major problem as the present ratio between number of drivers available to number of loads is way out of reach to control.

E-commerce may end up the greatest change ever in both the consumer and business markets.

We have witnessed the first complete year under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, and it has yielded real benefit.

As firms invest in technology, it’s vital to remember that our industry was built on handshakes and building relationships with customers.

Over the last few years, the scale game has taken everyone into a whole new industry landscape.

It’s hard to consider port challenges without first understanding factors influencing container carriers — our customers and often our shareholders. By all accounts, 2018 was a good year in terms of global container volume growth at around 4.6 percent. And we started to see carriers begin to turn in modest black figures by the third quarter. Hopefully this positive trend can continue into 2019. In the port sector we, too, had a good year in terms of delivering a stable port product throughout the US and Canada at around 4 percent growth. Service contract negotiations between carriers and BCOs will be of paramount importance this year as the industry prepares for January 2020 and the IMO initiated 0.5 percent low-sulfur fuel requirement. I read recently that this change is the biggest event since the migration away from coal as a fuel. I’ve heard all sorts of numbers on the annual impact, but it seems unlikely to be less than $15 billion for our industry. Scrubbers and LNG will help somewhat, but the vast majority of carriers will adjust to the new fuel standard and seek to justifiably recover with a floating BAF. Global logistics and trade patterns are unlikely to change as a result of trade disputes. There is such inertia I find it hard to see anything other than an eventual soft landing in time. With operations in the US and Canada, safety is the primary driver of the Ceres and Yusen terminal business. Maintaining an environment where everyone who comes to work can go home safely is all that really matters. Productivity remains a challenge in some ports; turning around larger vessels in a shorter window puts stress on the infrastructure. We need to find ways to adjust or processes and capabilities to deal with this new reality.

In this industry, price matters.

With longshore labor peace secured, we at the New York Shipping Association will be focused on implementing the provisions of the new six-year East Coast and New York/New Jersey labor agreements, especially those that impact productivity and the competitive position of the Port of New York and New Jersey.

The shipping industry along the east coast of North America is evolving at a tremendous pace.

The Georgia Ports Authority’s central challenge of 2019 is maintaining our high customer service standards in the face of exponential cargo growth.

In life, and usually in business, the future is thought to be too difficult to predict, but for liner shipping, the future seems to look like the past all too often.

Challenges are many for the agriculture and forest products exports community.

The era of trade liberalization may be over despite the trade community’s best efforts to stop protectionism and fragmentation.

I am hopeful in 2019 that we will see some existing technologies go mainstream and nascent ones emerge.

In 2019, logistics providers face increasing pressures to improve visibility and cross-border execution, and reduce costs, risks, and errors that decimate margins.

The freight transportation industry is in a technology renaissance.

A top 2019 priority is Congress adopting the American Association of Port Authorities’ unified industry plan that devotes 100 percent of HMT funds to America’s ports, while placing no additional tax burden on the industry or taxpayers.

2019 will be a year for shippers to regroup and recover from the Perfect Storm of 2018.

The increased capability of third-party technology providers, original equipment manufacturers, and tech-based freight brokers has provided a level of real-time (or near real-time) visibility that has not been seen before in the transportation industry.

Over the past couple years, the movement to “everything tech” and “disruption” all over has reached a fever pitch.

Canada, during recent negotiations with the US and Mexico on moving forward with a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement (now USMCA), is still facing a new age of protectionism with duties and tariffs, and where the classification of products has become ever more key in compliance.

Blockchain is both the most overhyped and most promising non-energy technology in the logistics industry today.