Supply chain

The failed late-October attempt by some members of the International Maritime Organization to delay some provisions of the rule taking effect Jan. 1, 2020, underscores shippers’ drive to figure out just how much more they’ll be paying for ocean shipping.

In an era of tight US capacity and rising freight costs, shippers need a more ‘holistic’ approach to supply chain visibility, speakers at the JOC Logistics Technology Conference say.

Strong demand for all classifications of US industrial space will continue in the coming months.

The carriage ban makes it an offense for ships to carry fuel with sulfur content higher than 0.5 percent, unless the vessel has a scrubber.

At the most recent talk in New Delhi, India Shipping Secretary Gopal Krishna and Bangladesh counterpart Abdus Samad agreed to increase ports of call, on each side, under the bilateral inland water transit and trade pact.

For one, the acquisition is part of a wider trend toward consolidation in the logistics and supply chain software markets, one in which platforms are coalescing around the idea that global manufacturers and retailers need to execute more processes on fewer common platforms.

The low water has stopped all barge transport on a huge section of the critical European waterway stretching between Kaub and the Swiss town of Basel, leaving high and dry shippers scrambling for truck transport that is in critically short supply.

Money can address some factors, but until several key checkpoints in a container’s journey address operational inefficiencies, bottlenecks will persist, consultants and industry executives said at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference this week.

At issue is an effort by port employers to have deskbound longshoremen monitor the temperature of each reefer twice a day to ensure that it is at the correct temperature, instead of longshoremen physically walking up to each box, checking, and documenting the temperature on an iPad.

The Chittagong Customs House Wednesday issued the handling notification, which was requested by the Chittagong Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

The Rhine River is now lower than the previous record levels set in 2003 as the dry spell that began in August has extended through October, and barges cannot travel past Ludwigshafen, south of Frankfurt.

The purchase price in cash or shares for the freight management business has yet to be agreed on, and failing agreement will be determined by an independent appraisal.

As a compromise to the failed experience building proposal, the IMO agreed to boost efforts to lessen the mandate’s impact on the market.

Integration Point is one of the largest providers of trade compliance software — tools that allow global shippers to manage customs regulations across the world, but also to strategize around the use of free trade zones and other ways to reduce duty exposure.

Haven's product, called Origin, is carrier-neutral and intended to enable shippers to make bookings for ocean, air, trucking, and rail shipments either direct with carriers or with freight forwarders.

The likelihood of significantly increased fuel costs has carriers girding themselves for an existential moment — one where the consequence of a failure to recoup the additional costs could be severe.

The Trump administration itself is split on the effectiveness of the tariffs, and, unlike Congress, the president “cares less about data,” so businesses should go directly to Congress with their concerns, the trade executive said.

The acquisition by E2open allows INTTRA to tap into a base of manufacturers and other shippers, a customer segment with which INTTRA has struggled over its history.

The electronic logging device rule imposed in the United States in November has already affected Canadian trucking, both cross-border and domestic services.

The looming IMO regulation, which reduces maximum sulfur emissions from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent across most of the world's shipping lanes, “is arguably one of the industry’s most defining moments since the shift away from coal,” according to US energy giant ExxonMobil.

Many questions remain concerning the low-sulfur rule that goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020: how best to comply, how to manage fuel supply after IMO 2020, how to estimate changes in fuel costs, and how to plan for enforcement.

"I’m not optimistic we are going to see a grand bargain with all the tariffs coming off,” Lance Noble, senior analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, said at the TPM Asia Conference on Oct. 10.

The agreement will see the two companies provide their respective customer bases with tracking access to 175,000 multimodal carriers — 90,000 in North America and 85,000 in Europe.

The carrier raised its stake in the logistics service provider a week after CEVA Logistics rejected a $1.5 billion takeover bid from rival DSV.

China and Russia are changing global trade rules and the global order in ways "detrimental to US security," a Trump administration document claims.

The new terminal gates at the Port Newark Container Terminal at the Port of New York and New Jersey have helped decrease turn times for trucks moving dry containers by 20 percent, and for refrigerated containers by 50 percent.

Bangladesh Shipping Secretary Abdus Samad told JOC.com the decision was made with the interests of Bangladesh’s Chittagong and Mongla ports in mind.

Containerized exports of recyclables, first hit by China's Jan. 1 tightening of environmental restrictions, were dealt another shot by the imposition of a 25 percent tariff in late August — something that will be felt in the months ahead.

The Geneva-based carrier said it will roll out the “smart” containers in the coming months, enabling users to follow the movement of containers in real time through the Internet of Things.

Among the major unknowns on the minds of ocean carrier executives: will the low-sulfur fuel supply be adequate? How high will fuel prices go? How will the new rule be enforced?

Ocean carriers are “working in the blind” at present, with each company coming up with its own fee, when what they actually need is a collectively created framework that ocean carriers and shippers will accept, so says a key ocean carrier executive.

The breakbulk/project market, buoyed by adequate global GDP growth, is finally reviving after a recession-triggered downturn magnified by the 2015 crude oil crash. But challenges loom, including shifting customer demand preferences and the low-sulfur mandate.

“The reality is that we are being suddenly exposed to $15 billion in additional spend, so we have to reduce consumption and try to convince customers to pay more,” APL CEO Nicolas Sartini told JOC.com.

Gulftainer has big plans for its Wilmington, Delaware facility. And although port competition abounds, if lower costs and a quick rail or truck trip from Delaware to the New York-Washington, DC hinterlands ensue, shippers would no doubt take notice.

On Tuesday evening, the owners of trucks called off their strike after a meeting with government officials. The officials said they would communicate the strikers' concerns to the prime minster about a new law's traffic liability provisions.

“The short term is bad, but it’s actually the long term that’s more of a concern,” said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. Brazil and Argentina have emerged as serious challengers to the once-dominant US position as the world’s top supplier of soybeans.

“We have to move together with the village so we can all advance together and create the solutions that the new economy requires,” PSA International Group CEO Tan Chong Meng told roughly 500 attendees in his keynote address at JOC's TPM Asia 2018 Conference in Shenzhen on Wednesday. “Somewhere in our strategies, I hope we will overlap.”

“Retailers are continuing to import merchandise in order to meet consumer demand even though tariffs are now in place on roughly half the goods imported from China and the trade war is still escalating,” Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, said Tuesday.

Many shippers have created their own bunker adjustment factors (BAFs), but smaller beneficial cargo owners typically have to accept the BAFs proposed by ocean carriers. However, widespread distrust of the carrier fuel surcharge mechanism may have the effect of pushing more shippers towards coming up with their own BAF formula to have greater control of a process.

While Loadsmart is far from the only startup to take on the idea of automating certain parts of the truck brokerage business — Convoy, Transfix, and Uber Freight are the most notable names in this movement — the former has been on a different growth path.