Container Shipping News

A group of U.S. agricultural exporters has endorsed a Coast Guard’s admiral’s view that compliance with international container-weighing rules should be handled as a “business practice” instead of through regulatory enforcement.

Ocean container spot freight rates on the Asia-North Europe trade closed in on its all-time low, declining almost 10 percent this week on the world’s largest shipping route.

Mundra, a privately-operated, minor cargo complex with modern infrastructure and ample hinterland connectivity, is emerging as an attractive port call for major container lines operating to and from India.

CMA CGM this week released two trade announcements upgrading its coverage on trades to and from India.

Volatile rates and uncertain services mean shippers and forwarders entering into contracts with carriers are having to ensure an enormous amount of flexibility is built into their negotiations.

The largest global container line group is asking the head of the U.S. Coast Guard to clarify its position on the SOLAS container weight mandate after a rear admiral said the rule was a commercial, not a regulatory, matter, an interpretation the World Shipping Council says flies in the face of the rule set to take effect in just 120 days.

Drayage operators say container lines’ continuing influence over chassis lowers efficiency at ports and is an obstacle to the creation of truck appointment systems at marine terminals.

The head of the International Maritime Organization has urged all players in the global supply chain to communicate with each other to ensure a successful implementation of the container weight verification regulation that comes into force July 1.

CMA CGM plans to upgrade a trans-Pacific service to the West Coast by deploying six ships with capacities of 18,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, starting late May, a bet that container terminals can handle the largest mega-ships to call the U.S. and that volume will steadily grow.

The loss of a mega-ship could "rewrite the law of general average," costing more than $1 billion, former container ship captain and maritime risk expert Andrew Kinsey said at the 16th annual TPM Conference. Captain Michael Lloyd warned losses such as the sinking of the MOL Comfort could become more common.

A panel of ocean shipping experts at the 16th Annual TPM Conference gazed in their crystal balls and saw very different outcomes for shipping patterns after the Panama Canal opens its new larger locks to commercial traffic in June.

China Cosco Shipping and CMA CGM are hoping to form a new alliance with OOCL, Evergreen Line, and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, according to sources in the Chinese shipping industry. CMA CGM strongly denied it was seeking an alliance with the carriers.

United Arab Shipping Co. this week issued two trade notices enhancing its coverage on trades to and from India.

Transportation intermediaries are likely to play an important role in verifying container weights for international shippers and shipping lines, a UPS Supply Chain Solutions executive said at the 16th Annual TPM Conference here Tuesday.

The SOLAS guidelines on container weight verification that will be implemented from July 1 are not mandatory, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Thomas told a packed TPM Conference here Tuesday.

Increasing deployment of mega-ships to Chinese ports, together with consolidation of services, may leave shippers with less choice for their China-related transportation needs, delegates learned at TPM 2016.

The outlook for container shipping lines is not good, according to several speakers at the JOC’s 16th Annual TPM Conference.

Historically low fuel prices have carriers contemplating historic trade routes around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, a move that could save millions by avoiding the tolls of the Suez Canal, according to shipping analyst SeaIntel. The catch is that shippers would have to be okay with seeing their sailing transits extended by a week.

Container and bulk ships transiting the Suez Canal fell in both number and tonnage terms in January, continuing a trend of declining traffic that gained momentum in the second half of last year.

Container lines should work with customers to attack supply chain inefficiency instead of fixating on ever-larger container ships, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said at the JOC’s 16th Annual TPM Conference.

Global economic growth will be stuck in low gear this year at around 2.5 percent, continuing the weak GDP that has put the brakes on trade for the past few years, IHS Chief Economist Nariman Behravesh told the 2016 TPM Conference in Long Beach on Monday.

Hyundai Merchant Marine has once again rejected speculation of a merger with fellow South Korean carrier Hanjin Shipping and clarified the role of a financial adviser serving the ailing ocean carrier.

Maersk Line expects container volumes in the eastbound trans-Pacific to increase between 5 and 5.5 percent this year but sees little or no growth in westbound volumes.

A working group made up of major non-vessel-operating common carriers is urging the International Maritime Organization to issue status updates of how the 162 contracting states to the SOLAS convention will implement the container weight mandate.

Conflicting and constantly changing information on new container weight regulations requiring shippers to provide the verified gross mass of all export containers points to a chaotic rollout of the rule when enforcement begins on July 1.

Financially struggling container ship lines face another money-losing year and need more consolidation in order to regain profitability, consulting firm AlixPartners says in a new report.

Several of the world’s top container lines are entering a game of musical chairs. When the music stops, some of them will find themselves in different vessel-sharing alliances because of the chain reaction touched off by the current wave of mergers and acquisitions among carriers.

Trans-Pacific shippers, still sore from U.S. West Coast port congestion, frustrated with schedule reliability and seeing no end to overcapacity draining spot rates, might be tempted to put the squeeze on carriers during annual contract negotiations. They should resist.

A U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation into the sinking of the U.S.-flag ship El Faro recessed Friday after witnesses painted a picture of a captain, a company and a system that in sum badly misjudged the threat of Hurricane Joaquin and greatly over-estimated the old ship’s seaworthiness.

U.S. exporters are being told to resist some guidance from carriers on how to meet the SOLAS container weight mandate, with the Agriculture Transportation Coalition saying the notifications from liners are “contradictory” to the Coast Guard’s hands-off stance on the rule.

Spot rates in the eastbound Pacific continued their descent this week, declining 4 percent week-to-week to the East Coast and 6 percent to the West Coast as shipments from Asia were down because of the annual Chinese New Year celebrations.

Start thinking differently, potentially a lot differently, about how to comply with the new container weight rule that enters force July 1.

Drewry is introducing a new procurement service for container shippers that conducts ocean shipping contract negotiations based on benchmark contract freight rates for all global trade lanes it obtains from a group of beneficial cargo owners.

A look at the 2015 performance of three major carriers — Maersk Line, OOCL and APL — reveals the extent of the decline in average revenue per 20-foot container transported that low bunker prices were unable to offset.

The location “pinger” on the crucial black box "voyage data recorder" carried on board the lost ship El Faro contained batteries that probably had expired, an official of the black box manufacturer testified today.

Hanjin Shipping is seeking to offload a variety of assets to remain solvent ahead of the maturation of $406 million in debt in the first half, according to a report from Yonhap News, a South Korean newswire.

As the U.S. Coast Guard was phoning TOTE Services, Inc. to affirm that El Faro was troubled but not in distress, the ship’s emergency beacon sounded an alarm in the background alerting Coast Guard search and rescue that the ship was now in distress.

Frank Peake, the former president of Sea Star Line, will ask the Supreme Court to overturn his antitrust conspiracy conviction and five-year sentence for price-fixing in the Jones Act domestic trade between the U.S. mainland and Puerto Rico.

World forwarding body FIATA added its weighty voice to the growing discussion over container weight verification, calling for container lines to better communicate how they expect to receive the verified gross mass data.

Hapag-Lloyd swung into profit in 2015 as cargo volume and revenue soared in the first year of its merger with the container arm of Chile’s CSAV.