In ocean shipping, everything is interconnected. The supply-demand fundamentals for completely different vessel types can be influenced by extremely high demand for ships in one segment. It's taking place right now. Dry bulk is experiencing repercussions as a result of container shipping. Dry bulk fundamentals are improving due to spillover impact, just as demand for conventional cargoes is increasing. Spot rates haven't been this high since the late 2000s for all bulker size groups. On his company's conference call with analysts, John Wobensmith, CEO of Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK), said, "Dry bulk shipping has had the best start [...]

Singapore Shipping costs and delays for products imported from China are rising due to a critical shortage of containers. This issue has emerged in Asia due to the pandemic and uneven global economic recovery, though it has also affected other parts of the world. According to industry observers, desperate businesses wait weeks for containers and pay premium prices for them, driving up shipping costs. Everyone who wants to ship goods from China is affected, but e-commerce companies and consumers, in particular, will bear the brunt of higher costs. According to Mirko Woitzik, risk intelligence solutions manager at supply chain risk [...]

As the Suez Canal blockade enters its fourth day and signs of even longer backlogs emerge, European and foreign companies are bracing for potential cost increases and supply-chain complications. Importers of retail and manufacturing goods are keeping an eye on delays in their supply chains, which are already disrupted by global disruptions, and some are exploring alternative routes, such as sending goods through more expensive airfreight or on ships sailing across Africa, which could delay deliveries by up to two weeks. A spokesman for Dutch brewing giant Heineken NV said, "We are keeping an eye on the situation," adding that [...]

Peloton exercise bikes and other equipment sales have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The New York City-based exercise company's membership subscriptions hit more than 3.1 million, more than double the number of subscriptions in 2019 as people skipped local gyms and turned to exercise at home. Long delays in getting goods transported and unloaded at the nation's ports, however, are pushing Peloton and other businesses to reconsider their long-term plans for where machinery is assembled and how products are distributed to consumers. The majority of Peloton's equipment is manufactured in Taiwan and transported to distribution centers worldwide via traditional sea [...]

Some container lines and their importing customers search for ways to bypass bottlenecks at the key U.S. trading gateways in Southern California, where an armada of cargo ships is anchored offshore at congested seaports. Shipping lines have started moving some operations to smaller ports. They have canceled some sailings altogether to avoid the backups that have tied up dozens of ships and hundreds of thousands of containers stuffed with goods of Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. CMA CGM SA, the world's fourth-largest container operator by size, announced that a weekly six-ship service from China to Los Angeles would be [...]

U.S. regulators have raised the heat on ocean shipping firms. Some of them run seaport terminals, trying to smooth the interrupted flow of containers swamping America's largest ports and wreaking havoc on the supply chains strained by the government. The Federal Maritime Commission has announced that it would order container carriers and port terminal operators serving the areas of Los Angeles and New York to "provide information to exporters on their policies and practices relating to container returns and container availability." In a statement on Feb. 17, the FMC said, 'Information obtained from parties receiving requests can be used as [...]

Christmas is not over; due to a shipping snarl, some shipments are not yet delivered. Christmas trees should be packed up by now, but U.S. importers might still be waiting for their vacation packages, and the effect is likely to be felt for another major vacation: Easter. According to ImportGenius data and study, historical volumes at the national ports have knotted the trade flow so severely that containers loaded with December holiday goods are still being processed through the ports. "It is evident that the shipping snarl resulted in a significant deviation from the traditional Christmas import schedule, based on [...]

Warehouses have been evolving for years, and there was no exception this year. Although some of the developments that would take place in 2020 may have been expected by analysts, what they did not predict was exactly how rapidly those trends might intensify and affect the market as a result of COVID-19. From shopping behavior shifts to rapid e-commerce expansion, warehouses have struggled to keep up everywhere. These pressures have prompted decision-makers in warehouses to reevaluate their procurement priorities and speed up how activities are modernized. RECRUITMENT Remaining a concern Until 2020, warehouses were struggling to resolve the difficulty of [...]

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has recently issued a blueprint for a globally coordinated minimum tax on multinational companies to establish a global agreement in 2021. It is not clear that global shipping will be included in either arrangement. However, the proposal will affect the long-standing preferential tax treatment that has become one of the financial foundations of maritime enterprises and applies to the international freight market. The Minimum Tax plan is an effort to fix the issue of tax avoidance. In regulatory terms, the phenomenon in which foreign firms take advantage of tax shelters to limit [...]

A significant rise in new construction orders is a headwind for possible freight prices in nearly every ocean shipping industry. The bargaining hand of cargo shippers is strengthened by more capability distributed among competing owners. Container-ship orders jumped in Q4 2020, according to Alphaliner. Six hundred seventy-three thousand five hundred twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) were ordered, the largest quarterly tally since Q3 2015. That's a significant leap, and when these newbuilds finally reach the water, cargo shippers may hope for rate relief. Yet they're probably not getting it. The ultra-consolidated liner sector showed in 2020 that it could handle capacity [...]