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As harshly as the market seized up during the COVID-19 pandemic, the “extreme normalization” of 2023, coined by Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc in May, is now the market reality. With barely a blip of a fall peak season for cargo volumes, the stage is set for a prolonged period of pain for containerized shipping and its key stakeholders. The implications are severe. For shippers, it means adjusting — again — to a dramatically different landscape characterized by short-term priorities aimed at capturing all the savings a weak freight rate market has to offer, in the process turning to NVOs, who are capturing a growing share of US imports. Longer term, those priorities involve often-riskier moves, such as, ironically, trying to de-risk supply chains by diversifying their sourcing. Assumptions that prevailed during the 2020-2022 COVID outbreak, including the idea that rate levels would never again return to pre-COVID levels, proved fleeting. Not only did rates return to levels that left ocean carriers barely profitable, but those carriers now are staring at systemic overcapacity that could last through 2028, according to Sea-Intelligence. That would be less impactful if ocean carriers were able to effectively flex capacity, but that ability has been elusive since rates started to tumble last year. Unless carriers reverse course and adjust boldly and quickly, the market is in for a rough patch, and third-quarter financials already are revealing the depth of the problems.

This webcast, featuring an analyst, an importer, and an exporter, will take the temperature of the state of containerized shipping as 2023 ends and how 2024 is shaping up.

Moderator:

Mark Szakonyi, Executive Editor, Journal of Commerce by S&P Global 

Speaker(s):

Lori Fellmer, Vice President-Logistics and Carrier Management, Basstech International

Alan Murphy, CEO, Sea-Intelligence 

Siva Narayanan, Director-Global Logistics, Solvay

*Check back soon for more information!

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Entering 2023, the global reefer market was hopeful. The massive price increases and cold chain disruption of the 2020-2021 COVID years was in the rearview mirror, and agricultural growers and the market at large widely believed that a normalization was in order. But as 2023 winds down, it’s increasingly clear that those hopes are being dashed. Nothing approaching normalization is occurring in the reefer market. Subdued reefer volumes in 2023 clearly show a market still in crisis. For decades, global economic and population growth corresponded to growth in international trade in food, whether fruits, meat, or seafood products. The growth was constant and predictable, providing a basis for billions of dollars in investment in reefer plugs, containers, and cold storage. That pattern has been disrupted since 2020, when COVID-related port disruption upended reefer supply chains. Now the issue is extreme weather events, which are increasingly disrupting growing patterns, resulting in scenarios where demand is there but supply doesn’t exist or is highly curtailed.

This webcast, featuring an analyst and two shipper representatives, will analyze where the reefer market stands as 2023 comes to a close, and what the outlook is for 2024. In the process, it will address the following questions:

• How did the disruption during COVID alter the cold chain, including critical food sourcing patterns?

• What impact has disruption had on fruit, pork, beef, and other critical reefer products?

• What’s the outlook for shipping capacity and cold storage?

• How are carriers and other industry stakeholders responding to the decarbonization challenge?

Moderator:

Teri Griffis, Associate Editor, Journal of Commerce by S&P Global

Speaker(s):

Kevin Brady, Cold Chain Client Manager, A.P. Moller-Maersk

William Duggan, North American Cold Chain Advisor, Eskesen Advisory

Helmuth Lutty, Independent Analyst and Former Vice President of Shipping Operations, Del Monte Fresh Produce

Interested in sponsoring this webcast? For more information, please visit https://subscribe.joc.com/mediasolutions/

 

A key component of a Journal of Commerce Gold subscription, the Gateway is a comprehensive, multi-trade lane, constantly updated data dashboard built into JOC.com, unveiled in late 2022. The Gateway offers a multi-angle snapshot of key shipping metrics contained within more than 100 downloadable charts — from freight rates to dwell times — within the trans-Pacific and multiple other trade lanes, US domestic transportation, breakbulk and project cargo markets, and more. The Gateway, which is being continuously expanded with additional data sets, enables supply chain and freight transportation professionals to monitor often rapidly changing conditions across multiple sub-markets and have immediate access to the Journal of Commerce coverage that puts the data in context for broader perspective.

The Gateway allows you to:

     · Track a variety of container spot rates on major container trade lanes.
     · Access the exclusive Intermodal Savings Index to help gauge when it’s time to shift surface transportation modes or routing.
     · Monitor truck spot rates and outbound over-the-road rates from major US ports.
     · Better illustrate to management truck capacity and employment conditions.
     · Follow key container volume and ocean reliability trends on major trades.
     · Better explain to customers the reasons for changes in ocean, US surface transportation, and air cargo pricing.
     · Track major economic indicators of global economy and shipping demand.

This webcast, with critical context from Journal of Commerce executive editor Mark Szakonyi, will show you how to tap the Gateway and better communicate internally and externally via key charts and readings.

Moderator/Presenter:

Mark Szakonyi, Executive Editor, Journal of Commerce, S&P Global

 

 

ChatGPT was the technology star of the first half of 2023 across virtually every industry and social channel. Its emergence seemed to herald a new era in the course of human interaction with software. But as the novelty of a quite generic language model that didn’t have specific logistics domain expertise started to wane, so has the idea that chatGPT — or more broadly, generative AI — will immediately transform supply chains. What it did do was shine a light on what exactly artificial intelligence is, and could be, because generative AI is one small branch of a much larger AI tree. In reality, AI already permeates much of the technology landscape, but where it holds real promise beyond chatbots and language assistance is in true supply chain optimization.

 

This webcast will explore the inroads AI has already made — often imperceptibly — in logistics and transportation, and what still must happen for it to make a more transformative impact.

Eric Johnson, Senior Editor, Logistics Technology, Journal of Commerce by, S&P Global

 

Gaurav Bajaj, CEO, Solvo.ai

Alan Holland, Founder & CEO, Keelvar

John Motley, CEO, LOG-NET

*Check back soon for more information!

Interested in sponsoring this webcast? For more information, please visit https://subscribe.joc.com/mediasolutions/