container shipping

New disclosures by lines point to massive ocean-carrier profits in the second quarter.

Biden’s executive order calls on the Justice Department to help regulators monitor pricing practices and anticompetition in the container shipping and rail sectors.

McCarthy Construction Cos. has been awarded three projects to help handle growing cargo volumes on the Texas Gulf Coast.

More box ships, bulkers and tankers are changing hands than ever before — good news for ship values and stocks.

Ocean carriers could make up for two decades’ worth of losses in a single year as demand overwhelms vessel supply.

California offshore traffic jam, Ever Given, Yantian closure, skyrocketing rates and volumes … what’s next for container shipping?

Experts say disruption to the supply chain caused by the coronavirus crisis has been challenging for manufacturers of all sizes, particularly smaller companies.

The Louisiana International Terminal will be capable of handling 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units annually.

More problems loom for importers of Asian containerized goods and tanker slump could last even longer.

May’s container movements at the Jacksonville port beat the previous record set in October 2019.

1986: Liberia fights to remain a leading flag of convenience as competition increases.

A year and a half after COVID emerged in Wuhan, China’s exporters, liners, shipyards and container factories are all booming.

A potential strike by Canada Border Services Agency officers threatens to disrupt the country’s supply chains. The Port of Vancouver could feel the most pain.

There has never been a better time to own container ships and lease them to liners. But some owners are selling ships and cashing out.

“The demand is still here, the demand is growing, ships are getting bigger,” says Port Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther.

Americans are spending more on services. Contrary to predictions, this has yet to curb demand for containerized goods.

Spot pricing has surged even higher, propelled by carrier rate hikes and China congestion fallout.

Container Ship Fleet Size by Nationality of Operation

Former chief mate of MSC Gayane gets seven years behind bars for lead role in massive 2019 smuggling operation.

Decision to secure dedicated vessel highlights unprecedented strength of container shipping and risks faced by importers.

Container spot rates spiked again, with new records set. For importers, the worst is yet to come.

Rising fuel costs are yet another woe for containerized cargo shippers, while widening spreads should benefit ships with scrubbers.

Consolidation in the liner sector is already extreme. Newbuild orders will further concentrate market power in fewer hands.

Congestion is cutting liner capacity just as freight rates are at all-time highs, incentivizing carriers to buy or charter more ships.

Environmental regs could extend future dry bulk and tanker upside, while consolidation could change curve of container-shipping cycle.

Retailers at increasing risk of not getting goods from Asia on shelves as ocean transport system hits limit.

Freight forwarder will pay “absolute historic high” to secure container ship as “people are panicking” amid “out of control” market.

Out of an abundance of caution, carriers like Maersk extended the suspension of vessels into the ports from May 31-June 6.

Ships at anchor are unlikely to clear by peak season. Congestion is forcing wide-scale voyage cancellations.

The containers that U.S. shippers need are all built in China, where factories could set a new production record this year.

How bad is it? A Vietnam-New York slot was just offered at $19,000 per FEU, reveals Flexport’s Nerijus Poskus.

Shippers call on lawmakers to expand government oversight of contracts between ocean carriers and their customers.

ZIM is the liner most exposed to upside from America’s import binge. It’s taking full advantage of the situation.

Dan Kopp, CEO of freight brokerage ITG Transportation Services, joins Trey Griggs, VP of sales at Lean Solutions Group, to discuss the ocean shipping environment at FreightWaves LIVE @HOME.

Container activity was 275,840 TEUs at the port in April, an increase of 25% year-over-year for the month of April.

With the retail inventory-to-sales ratio still falling, U.S. importers are urged to move fast on their holiday import plans.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

Container rates are in uncharted territory. If demand continues to outpace supply, there’s little to stop them from ascending further.

The situation for importers is getting even more dire. Already extreme container rates are ascending to even higher peaks.

Danaos will stockpile cash from the current boom and spend it on new ships when environmental regs are clearer.

Formerly containerized cargoes are being loaded onto bulkers. Box-ship orders are keeping future bulker growth in check.

Maersk reveals more details on its shift toward long-term contracts at the expense of spot exposure.

Importers are scrambling as demand sails past ocean transport supply. The numbers paint an ominous picture for cargo shippers.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

2001: Several shipping lines are close to ordering the first container ships of 8,000- to 9,000-TEU capacity, but others in the industry are warning of the associated risks.

COVID has been great for stocks. In ocean shipping, container and dry bulk shares rode the wave. Tankers stocks sank.

Chinese container production still trails torrid demand. Ever Given accident was ‘icing on the cake’ — making box shortfall worse.

Now that shipping lines hold the pricing cards, importers must reset strategies, says Sea-Intelligence’s Jochen Gutschmidt.

Trans-Pacific container crunch is about to become even more severe, warns Flexport, with May sailings now effectively sold out.

Some importers are rethinking how to move their products due to the Ever Given’s “very sorry situation.”

Liners are paying historically high rates to charter ships and maximize their exposure to the booming freight market.

U.S. importers will be paying a lot more for annual ocean contracts this year, but pricing inflation has eased.

U.S. maritime regulators are giving ocean carriers and shippers more flexibility to meet contract filing requirements.

Savannah’s record March underscores why it’s investing hundreds of millions on new capacity upgrades.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

U.S. ports just booked their largest import hikes in memory, according to The McCown Report.

Imports into Los Angeles at not slowing down. Can the backlog be cleared before the peak-season swell begins?

As cargo shippers struggle, container-vessel companies rake in massive profits. Early signals point to record Q1 results.

Container shipping spot rates haven’t budged from COVID-fueled peaks. Cargo shippers’ hopes for a rate pullback are fading.

Days after Ever Given backlog was declared cleared, the number of ships waiting to transit the Suez Canal remains high (with video).

Twenty tons of coke was found aboard an MSC ship in 2019. MSC just revealed that it’s spending $100 million more on security in response.

Bad timing: Still-rising cargo demand is coinciding with container-shipping constraints in the wake of the Suez Canal crisis.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

This is an excerpt from Monday’s (3/29) Point of Sale retail supply chain newsletter sponsored by ArcBest. Yee-HAW, people. The third round of fiscal stimulus is causing an immediate and significant boost to […]

Biden taps Daniel Maffei to head the FMC amid the ongoing port congestion crisis.

Third-party logistics provider GSC Logistics plans to add 100 more drivers and 400 chassis to meet the container volume surge on the West Coast.

Canadian police and border officers seized nearly $8 million in opium found in two shipping containers at the Port of Vancouver and then swapped the drugs with a dummy shipment to let the dragnet continue.

Suez Canal accident aftermath: Extensive disruptions are ahead for key Asia-East Coast container shipping services.

The longer the Suez saga continues, the greater the container, tanker and dry bulk shipping impacts. There could be big losers — and winners.

The U.S. secretary of transportation testifies before Congress on the Biden administration’s infrastructure priorities.

California’s container-ship traffic jam is slightly less jammed but import pressure remains high. One analyst warns the worst may be yet to come.

Ocean carrier ZIM just released record results and confirmed huge gains for contract rates. So why did its stock sink?

Newbuild-to-fleet ratio now 15.3%, up from 9.4% in mid-2020. But orders are not high enough yet to wave red flags.

There is a direct correlation between stimulus checks and the surge in e-commerce spending, according to SEKO US.

Deutsche Bank’s Amit Mehrotra on how long import surge could last and upside potential for container, dry bulk and tanker stocks.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

Container, dry bulk and tanker stocks push forward. Biggest winner since mid-2020: Danaos, up (this is not a typo) 1,202%.

Carriers should begin planning now to influence policy change that could result from Biden’s supply chain executive order, industry observers say.

Anchorages are filling up with ships off multiple ports — not just California’s. Yet the reasons behind the traffic jams are not always the same.

Three Chinese companies — CIMC, DFIC and CXIC — produce about 80% of the world’s containers.

How does California congestion rank versus 2015 logjam caused by tensions with dockworkers union? It’s not even close: 2021 wins by a long shot.

Drayage trucking and logistics company ContainerPort sold its container yard and depot division to ITS ConGlobal, a company with intermodal, finished vehicle and depot service terminals.

If ocean freight rates have legs, analysts see much more room for the secondhand ship values to run — which should, in turn, boost stocks.

Jefferies senior analyst Randy Giveans outlines why it is now a particularly good time to buy container-shipping stocks.

Today’s container market chaos underscores the need for enforceable ocean contracts as opposed to loose agreements, argues consultant Tom Craig.

Federal Maritime Commissioner Carl Bentzel discusses the agency’s options in regulating rates and service amid the booming U.S. container supply chain.

Gordon Downes, CEO of New York Shipping Exchange, joins Ocean Audit’s head Steve Ferreira to chat about structural changes in container shipping and the place two-way committed contracts have in the industry.

BIMCO’s Peter Sand discusses whether container shipping’s ‘new normal’ has legs and what’s next for the sector.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

Globalization isn’t just driven by comparative advantage. It is skewed by subsidies and mispricing of risk, according to author Marc Levinson.

It’s not just small and midsized importers that face massive contract rate hikes. Even the biggest shippers will feel the pain.

AgTC’s Peter Freidmann highlights the hurdles U.S. food exporters confront as they vie for containers to transport their goods.

Steve Ferreira talks container losses, carrier assets and freight rates on this episode of Navigate B2B.

Cargo shippers hamstrung by the global container shortage should not expect a box building spree in China to come to their rescue.

It’s not just container stocks rising. Shipping stocks are up for everything from bulkers to tankers to gas carriers.

The Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) is the world’s leading—and most accurate—index of market rates for 40′ containers.

Here’s a helicopter view courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard of container-ship armada off Los Angeles and Long Beach (WITH VIDEO).

ZIM, newest Wall Street shipping entrant, is riding wave of record-high freight rates. Shares fully recovered from rocky start.

Maersk, the world’s largest container carrier, just reported record quarterly results. And its next quarter looks even better.