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FreightWaves Staff Saturday, April 27, 2019

Down Under Trucking: driver “incinerated” in head-on crash; deadly drunk-driving trucker; hostile takeover target warns shareholders

It was a truly shocking Easter on Australian roads with an appalling double-fatality in which a truck driver was incinerated in a head-on crash. Elsewhere, a drunk big rig driver faced an Australian court after driving backwards down a motorway and then jack-knifing his double-B into a gas station. Meanwhile, following a two-year study, Australian sleep scientists warned truckers that prolonged eye closure is a sign of drowsiness. And, finally, trucking corporations have been introducing new products, buying out shareholders and attempting hostile takeovers. It’s another week in Down Under Trucking.

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Joanna Marsh Monday, April 22, 2019

More states take up two-person crew legislation

Add Ohio and Washington state to the list of states where leaders are debating whether to require freight railroads to have at least two crew members per train. Ohio and Washington state legislators have introduced bills this spring mandating a minimum crew size for freight trains. Washington state’s bill takes the debate one step further by also defining how many crew members should be operating a train that’s carrying crude oil.

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FreightWaves Staff Friday, April 19, 2019

What The Truck?!? – April 19, 2019

What the Truck is going on in all things freight this week? Weekly Market Update: J.B. Hunt misses analysts’ first quarter earnings and revenue estimates. Truckload carriers’ first quarter results don’t appear to be in jeopardy after the J.B. Hunt report. Marten Transport reports best-ever net increase of more than 30 percent in first quarter of 2019. What gets hauled to Vegas, stays in Vegas.And then on to the freight tech headlines of the week.

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FreightWaves Staff Friday, April 19, 2019

Marine terminal operators sting Australian shippers, truckers with huge surcharges

Australia’s import, export and logistics industries are in dismay at a massively escalating series of surcharges that are being unilaterally charged to truckers and shippers by the nation’s main box terminal operators. There have been hikes in surcharges of hundreds of percentage points. And, in one case, an imposed surcharge was literally increased over a couple of years by 2,372 percent. Industry executives are furious.

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FreightWaves Staff Friday, April 19, 2019

Hong Kong’s first quarter 2019 box volumes plummet

There has been a steep drop in the volume of box traffic handled at Hong Kong, one of the world’s busiest box ports. Containerized throughput at Hong Kong took a dive in the first three months of 2019 when compared to the first quarter of 2018, according to preliminary figures from the Hong Kong Marine Department. Box traffic was down, on average, by 10.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the first quarter of 2018.

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FreightWaves Staff Saturday, April 13, 2019

Down Under Trucking: spate of horror crashes; law reform; commercial truck sales

Down Under Trucking: a weekly round-up of trucking news from Australia. The country has been struck by a spate of horrible crashes of trucks with multiple trailers have rolled over. On the corporate side, a major trucking-related hostile takeover has broken out. Politicians in Queensland are seeking to modify the Heavy Vehicle National Law and, on the commercial front, truck sales appear to be coming off the boil from last year’s red-hot market.

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FreightWaves Staff Friday, April 12, 2019

What The Truck?!? April 12, 2019

What The Truck?!? episode 63What the Truck is going on in all things freight this week? Our focus this week is on regulatory moves, final mile and LTL, and updates in freight tech and capital investment. This week Ellis Smith joins Chad Prevost in the studio while JP is on assignment in Orlando covering the TIA Conference.

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FreightWaves Staff Thursday, April 11, 2019

Dry bulk rates continue to sink into the doldrums

When freight rates are terrible, even a slight improvement seems like an uptick. But a terrible market is still a terrible market. Capesize rates have marginally, slightly, improved… but they’re still dreadful. And the rest of the dry bulk shipping markets  are doing their best to impersonate a submarine… they’re all steadily sinking. Ship scrapping that removes some excess tonnage may help rate recovery.

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FreightWaves Staff Monday, April 8, 2019

Cyclone Wallace spares Port Walcott but iron ore exports disrupted

Australia’s maritime officials are keeping a wary eye on the oceans around north west Australia as Cyclone Wallace menaces the Pilbara-region coastline. The harbour master for Port Walcott directed that the port be cleared. However, it was a narrow miss for iron ore export facility, Port Walcott, as the cyclone swerved away. And so the harbour master cancelled the direction to clear the port. Iron ore exports are, nonetheless, likely to disrupted. But it’s not over yet as, to the north east of Wallace, a “tropical low” is threatening to build up into a cyclone too.

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FreightWaves Staff Friday, April 5, 2019

What the Truck?!? – April 5, 2019

What the Truck is going on in all things freight this week? Weekly Market Update: Survey data shows upcoming improvement in manufacturing, softening service sector, U.S. rail volumes dip as carriers grapple with flooding impacts. War on Detention update: Specialty stores and electronic retail tops the list for longest dock times, And then on to the other big headlines of the week: ICONIQ Capital invests in Truckstop.com at $1B valuation, White House: Trump would let trucks cross Mexican border if it closes, Providence Equity buys GlobalTranz back from The Jordan Company after just 8 months, Stock stumbling, Lyft announces $50 million in transportation initiatives. 

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FreightWaves Staff Friday, April 5, 2019

ExxonMobil Singapore plant upgrade will produce more low-sulfur fuel

Oil giant ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) has announced a multi-billion dollar upgrade of its Singapore integrated manufacturing complex to convert more fuel oil and other “bottom-of-the-barrel” crude products into higher value lube base stocks and distillates. The upgrade will also increase the capacity of the facility to produce an extra 48,000 barrels per day (b/d) of low-sulfur fuels to meet the International Maritime Organization’s 0.5 percent sulfur regulation (IMO 2020), which goes into effect on January 1, 2020.

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FreightWaves Staff Thursday, April 4, 2019

EPIK appointment for floating LNG terminal at Newcastle

Brisbane, Australia-based construction company Watpac has been contracted to provide design, engineering and construction services to EPIK, a South Korean liquefied natural gas (LNG) developer for the construction and placement of a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Watpac is a subsidiary of Belgian multi-disciplinary engineering company, Besix.

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