Michael Vincent welcomed Kaylee Nix to the Midday Market Update set as his new co-host for this episode. They explored the failures of Texas’ energy infrastructure during February’s winter storm and the world of ocean shipping contracts through the eyes of the New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX).
In headlines, Andrew Cox highlighted a deep view of the LTL freight market and talked about two Canadian trucking companies shutting down, as well as what union decertification means for a California trucking company.
Cox plugged his latest Point of Sale newsletter, which focuses on the impacts of direct-to-consumer strategy being adapted by some businesses recently. Point of Sale airs every Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. ET on FreightWavesTV.
Nix and Vincent kept the first MMU guest in the family and welcomed Kaylee’s dad, Keith Nix, to the show for a firsthand account of the recent Texas power crisis. Keith Nix is the vice president of technical services and system reliability for Texas New Mexico Power, which is responsible for power transmission and distribution across parts of Texas.
He explained what happened to make the grid fail how it did: too much power demand, not enough power supply, and the inability of power generators to produce more supply to meet that demand. He also talked about how the grid needs to be improved and how infrastructure needs to be upgraded to keep up with demands of the future.
Vincent and Kaylee Nix brought on the CEO and founder of NYSHEX, Gordon Downes, who talked about the container shipping crisis and what it will take to bust the bottleneck open: time. Downes said ocean shippers need to be patient and wait for the rest of the freight industry to provide support and move freight out of those ports.
Downes made it clear that as contracting season heats up, shippers should change their approach to negotiating and aim to secure two-way contracts to maximize efficiency while preserving flexibility for future market changes.
You can find more Midday Market Update episodes and recaps for all our live podcasts here.
