Supply chain

Despite its brevity, shippers can expect to see ongoing impacts on tonnage supply on some trade lanes from the Oct. 1-3 strike, Lars Jensen told the South Carolina International Trade Conference.

If ports operated by ILA labor were for decades a dependable alternative to those reliant on the ILA’s perpetually disruptive West Coast counterpart, the ILWU, that assumption no longer holds true, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Last week’s three-day longshore strike on the East and Gulf coasts is not expected to disrupt transportation supply chains ahead of the traditional beginning of the holiday shopping season, the National Retail Federation said.

Market participants yearning for a market where adverse events never lead to major supply chain hiccups are essentially asking for a reality that has never existed, writes Lars Jensen.

Refrigerated container shippers using US East and Gulf coast ports are tapping some non-unionized terminals, but they fear produce stuck on ships and in ports will spoil, and equipment will become scarcer if the strike lasts longer than a week.

Several groups are calling on the White House to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to stop the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) strike that began on Tuesday at midnight.

Container lines are contracting directly with perishables shippers, undercutting volume brokers, but the specialized reefer fleet is hanging on to niche markets as a handful of ports pivot toward dockside cold storage.

The White House may finally be looking to take a firmer hand in stalled talks between the ILA and maritime employers with an expected strike just days away.

The lobby group representing ocean carriers in issues involving containers failed in its bid to further delay new rules covering how per diem bills are handled.

The integration of two large companies in similar industries is “particularly challenging,” according to Tobias Meyer, who withdrew DHL’s interest in DB Schenker earlier this year.

The Biden administration may have no choice but to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to stop a US port strike even as broader support for Democrats among transportation unions falters ahead of the presidential election.

GenLogs, a technology provider aiming to help US brokers track trucks, uses a network of roadside sensors to passively collect truckload carrier locations.

Brokers looking to tap into the booming US-Mexico trade now have a tool to serve shipper requests to handle cross-border truckload moves.

The software provider has steered clear of outside investment as it sought to patiently build import management tools for shippers.

Under the spotlight at MEPC 82 are midterm measures consisting of a technical element to reduce GHG intensity of fuels and a pricing mechanism to narrow the gap between fossil and green fuel.

Despite record import volumes in August, marine terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are experiencing minimal congestion, with elevated rail container dwell times the only problem area.

While there are still regulatory hurdles to clear, a spokesperson for DSV told the Journal of Commerce the combined company “will continue under the DSV brand” going forward.

Port users are concerned that if the technology and infrastructure needed to support a zero-emission environment is not built out, the industry’s only recourse will be to cap cargo volumes at Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The shippers were joined this time by a group of House Republicans, who in a separate letter warned of the “dire impacts” to the US economy from a possible port strike.

Carriers tell the Journal of Commerce they would prefer to avoid a strike and the lengthy operational upheaval a stoppage would cause along the East and Gulf coasts, but unlike in the past, they feel no urgency to get a deal done, writes Peter Tirschwell.

The Biden administration is targeting textile and apparel goods moving via a duty-free program by proposing tariffs while seeking more data on sub-$800 shipments.

DSV knocked the unions’ preferred bidder, private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, out of the race, but the forwarder’s bid now needs approval from the German parliament.

Seasonal demand for reefer containers on the north-south trade lane, combined with a surge in Brazilian beef exports, could lead to equipment scarcity by the year’s end, market watchers say.

The US maritime regulator sees no reason to block the new vessel-sharing alliance run by Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, but the agency’s head still has concerns about the deal.

Dwell times at marine terminals in the Northwest Seaport Alliance have doubled in recent weeks as intermodal container moves spiked amid peak season imports.

The ocean shipping line is the latest to plant a stake in a key manufacturing region along the US-Mexico border.

Investors have put $6.3 million into a startup aiming to provide a procurement and transportation management software alternative to enterprise-focused solutions.

Forwarders booking less-than-containerload business from shippers face documentation and pricing challenges that cut into their ability to carve out margin.

A new warehouse due to open early next year in Portland for frozen and ambient-temperature cargoes could cut transportation costs for shippers now using out-of-state storage and ports.

The BlueGrace Logistics Confidence Index shows an uptick in negative sentiment about revenue and orders in late 2024, despite gains in freight volume this summer.

The US maritime regulator said the ocean carrier did not simply have a contractual dispute with a shipper but instead clearly violated the US Shipping Act.

Maersk’s recent big order of dual-fuel ships — some of which will be powered by LNG — illustrates the quandary the carrier, and by extension container shipping, is currently in when it comes to achieving a zero-carbon future, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Private fleets owned by shippers are increasingly hauling freight once moved by for-hire carriers, and those truck counts are expected to keep expanding, according to an industry survey.

The wave of cargo thefts hitting the US and Canada grew rapidly in the first half of the year as criminals became more sophisticated, a study from risk management firm Overhaul shows.

A range of supply chain mapping and risk management tools have emerged in the past decade, many aimed at customs brokers and third-party logistics providers.

Canada’s western ports have little capacity to handle idled intermodal cargo should railroad workers strike, but eastern ports have more space to manage any delays.

Many European shippers are locked into the peak season that will extend the high volume of Asian imports through the third quarter despite the early movement of orders to mitigate disruption from the longer Red Sea routing.

A key inland transportation market is growing as companies from Class I railroads to specialized logistics firms chase freight and expand in Arizona’s “Silicon Desert.”

A flood of duty-free shipments from Asia has upped the ante on brokers having broad knowledge of the upstream supply chains used by their importer clients.

Most of Freightos’ traction in air and ocean freight procurement has centered around spot pricing, but the purchase of Shipsta will give it access to contract data from enterprise shippers.