Supply chain

A second explosion rocked the city of Tianjin, home to the world’s 10th-busiest container port, nearly two months to the day after an explosion in the port area killed nearly 200 people and impacted port operations.

In the hyper-competitive world of refrigerated transportation, ocean carriers are always on the lookout for new solutions to control the atmosphere inside their containers while satisfying their drive for energy efficiency and improved environmental sustainability.

Major container carriers such as Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co., United Arab Shipping Co., Hamburg Sud and Hapag-Lloyd are among those making significant investments in their reefer business to help offset slower growth in other business areas.

Kuehne+Nagel’s third-quarter operating profit grew 9 percent year-over-year as lower costs and a switch to the U.S. ocean container market from the troubled Asia-Europe trade more than offset negative currency movements.

The U.K. has sold its remaining stake in Royal Mail, raising 591.1 million pounds ($910 million) for a 13 percent shareholding and ending the state’s involvement in the 499-year old postal company.

The world's second-largest transport operator is adding more than 41,000 postal codes to its international guaranteed package service, expanding its delivery footprint in Asia and other regions.

An arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said stronger action is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ships, and that a carbon tax on shipping would be a way to achieve it.

Pharmaceutical companies have increased their oceangoing share of shipments. Ocean carriers and cold chain service providers are happy for the business, but the moves have also creased concerns over insurance and liability.

The Egyptian government is being asked to provide more clarity into plans for the development of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) as it seeks foreign investment to meet its ambitious goals for the area around the canal.

The Italian government has announced the price of shares for Poste Italiane’s imminent initial public offering, valuing the state-owned mail, logistics and financial services company at up to 9.8 billion euros ($11 billion).

Growth in consumption of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish in emerging and newly industrialized countries should accelerate in the coming years, creating tailwinds for reefer container and specialized reefer operators.

Shippers that operate truck fleets are urging U.S. lawmakers to give states more flexibility to determine whether to allow heavier trucks on their roads.

An increase in the annual subsidy for operation of U.S.-flag ships under the Maritime Security Program survived in a U.S. House-passed bill to end the United States’ 40-year-old ban on oil exports, but the bill’s chances of becoming law remain iffy.

Under XPO, Con-way Freight will offer economy as well as priority service, and XPO will pursue opportunities to leverage trucking networks on both sides of the Atlantic, Jacobs told the JOC Inland Distribution Conference.

Nearly a year after labor stoppages at U.S. West Coast ports burned scores of perishables shippers, the industry’s largest advocacy group refuses to relent in its push for greater transparency in how ports are operated and negotiations with unions are conducted.

Shipping Australia Limited is betting the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal will be a boon for the Australian reefer trade, which the country hopes will offset the trade losses sustained after the commodity bust.

Recent harsh winters, equipment shortages and longshore labor disruptions have taught beneficial cargo owners that supply chain plans of the past are inadequate in today’s unpredictable transportation environment if they do not include risk assessment and management.

The labor dispute that clogged West Coast ports with containers for months is still shaping freight markets, speakers at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference say, months after a contract was signed and the freight logjam broke.

China’s economic slowdown is not putting the brakes on foreign logistics property developers that have in the past month signed new leases for more than 4 million square feet in cities across the mainland.

A developer is adding more than half a million square feet of speculative industrial space at BNSF Railway’s Logistics Park Kansas City.

Orbcomm, a technology company with a focus on asset tracking, has purchased WAM Technologies as it seeks to bolster its maritime presence.

U.S. lawmakers may have avoided a government shutdown last week, but the temporary funding bill that bought Congress 10 more weeks has left important port construction projects and ports’ access to federal grants in peril, according to the top U.S. port lobby.

Poste Italiane, Italy’s state-owned postal company is expected to start selling shares in its initial public offering next week and make its debut on the Milan stock exchange at the end of October or early November.

The coming "data explosion" could help make transportation networks much more efficient — if we can agree on what information to share and with whom to share it.

The National Labor Relations Board determined that International Longshore and Warehouse Union Locals 8 and 40 in Portland violated federal laws prohibiting secondary boycotts by engaging in work stoppages and slowdowns, and on Wednesday ordered the ILWU to cease and desist from those activities.

After collecting thousands of days' worth of data from more than 220 truck drivers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is starting the final analysis stage of its study of the safety impact of its new 34-hour restart rules, which were suspended in December. The agency hopes to complete its study this year.

The great swell in U.S. transportation, warehousing and utility jobs receded in July after hitting historic heights in April and May, but demand for workers remains strong in a complex employment market. Hiring numbers, and separations, continue to rise.

UPS is expanding its footprint in China with offices in 13 new cities, a reflection of the parcel giant’s confidence in the Chinese market despite the recent economic slowdown there.

A new, centralized supply chain software platform will help food service distributor Canadian Paper keep track of perishables moving from "farm to fork."

There is no “medium-term” prospect of the European Union expanding sulfur emission regulations for container lines to the Mediterranean, a Port of Barcelona executive said last week.

DHL Express has promoted a veteran African logistics executive to managing director of Sub-Saharan Africa operations for the global parcel giant.

U.S.-flag requirements raised shipping costs of taxpayer-funded international food aid by 23 percent between 2011 and 2014, according to a government report that provides fresh ammunition to critics of U.S. cargo preference laws.

CEVA Logistics claims changes to its less-than-container-load export system and the use of trucks instead of rail have cut local transit times for U.S. exports by as much as 14 days compared with the schedules of rival operators.

The Indian federal government is retreating from a controversial “corporatization” plan to transform ‘major’, or public, port trusts into independent companies following stiff opposition from labor unions and some political groups, dealing a big blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reform efforts to stimulate trade and economic growth.

Major road crossings along the India-Nepal border were closed Wednesday and while the border remains open for people crossing on foot or by bicycle, vehicles have been prevented from crossing by protesters on the Nepalese side and by India's Armed Border Force, the Sashastra Seema Bal or SSB, citing unrest as a security concern.

India’s director general of shipping Deepak Shetty said that while the country is working to streamline its bureaucracy to facilitate maritime trade, the total removal of cabotage protections was out of the question.

CEVA Logistics, the world’s sixth largest third-party logistics provider, has won a $50 million contract to handle Continental’s U.K. operations for the next five years.

A new rule protecting U.S. truck drivers from dispatchers and others who encourage them to violate federal regulations to meet unrealistic delivery deadlines may be on the books as soon as next month, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. But an FMCSA official and at least two shipping executives say it’s a resolution to what may never have been a significant problem in the industry to begin with.

As a concession to the owners of the established port terminals and to encourage them to invest more in their container terminals, Brazil’s Special Ports Ministry has been negotiating to extend the concession periods before the contracts require.

Florida’s Port Tampa Bay joins the ranks of other U.S. Southeast ports that will soon be able to handle direct imports of select cold-treated produce from South America, bringing new business to the Sunshine State and cutting logistics costs for produce shippers.