Ports

The plea to the Biden administration comes just days after the Pacific Maritime Association said the latest job action by dockworkers caused “significant delays” at some marine terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Mississippi’s Gulfport is looking to add more container handling capability with Ports America planning to redevelop a shuttered terminal for cargo handling.

Ahead of a June deadline to issue new rulemaking on detention and demurrage billing, the Federal Maritime Commission is seeking clarity from carriers and terminals about billing shippers when container pickups and drop-offs are not possible.

Local freight forwarder sources in India say they view GRIs more as a tool to slow the erosion in rates rather than effectively trying to increase prices.

The Port of Hamburg is once again being disrupted by strike action that is causing significant disruption to vessel schedules at Europe’s third-largest container hub.

The Scan Baltic to USA service, which will begin calling Jaxport in late April, marks the port's second trans-Atlantic service and fifth container service.

The fast-track hearing schedule came after the South Carolina State Port Authority told the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals the port could become “bottlenecked” if ships can’t call the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal.

Maersk in April will stop collecting detention and demurrage fees on days terminals are closed and shippers can’t pick up or drop off containers, a move yet to be followed by competing ocean carriers.

ILWU Canada is seeking significant wage increases, while automation of cargo-handling equipment, a source of tension in past contract negotiations, will likely once again be a prominent issue.

While the ocean shipping market has largely normalized after COVID-19, stakeholders would be wise to pursue a business strategy that takes operationally disruptive events into account, writes analyst Lars Jensen.

Breakbulk shippers and logistics providers have several proposals for changes to ISPM 15 mitigation and enforcement measures pending approval from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Longshore workers represented by ILWU Local 13 are refusing to stagger their meal breaks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, resulting in periods when no work is being done on the docks, says the Pacific Maritime Association.

As the US West Coast’s share of import TEU has fallen in recent years, analyst Larry Gross notes there is an important difference between declines due to sourcing location changes and declines due to loss of share by region.

The independent equipment providers say upending the current business model would create additional chassis shortages and invoicing problems that would inconvenience cargo owners.

February marked the sixth consecutive month of year-over-year declines in Asian imports, but those declines are being compared with the record or near-record import volumes that were posted in late 2021 and early 2022.

Delays began to build after an equipment upgrade project to enhance productivity and capacity at APM Terminals Mumbai put one of its berths out of commission for six months.

The bill would heighten transparency into regulatory penalties levied against ocean carriers and marine terminal operators and draw a sharp line on the involvement of China-based entities in US shipping.

Wan Hai’s two pandemic-era US East Coast services will be merged in a move designed to provide more regular capacity.

In approving the $31 billion merger, the Surface Transportation Board rejected arguments from the FMC and competing railroads that the deal would harm US ports and shippers.

The rare occurrence – in which multiple longshore labor negotiations across North America are taking place either simultaneously or nearly so — is enough to make shippers nervous, or at least wary, writes Journal of Commerce Executive Editor Mark Szakonyi.