<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Times are changing for U.S. exporters as federal scrutiny of their activities grows, and many need h</div>

Times are changing for U.S. exporters as federal scrutiny of their activities grows, and many need h

<div>Times are changing for U.S. exporters as federal scrutiny of their activities grows, and many need help adjusting, according to Peter Baish, director of product management at ClearCross. Baish should know. Until the beginning of this year, he worked for U.S. Customs for 30 years, most recently heading up all of the agency's activities in the export area, including the Automated Export System. Now he hopes to add his wisdom and experience to the capabilities of Clear-Cross, a cross-border trade management software company based in Reston, Va.Baish's job at ClearCross is to advise shippers about how to automate their documentation...

Times are changing for U.S. exporters as federal scrutiny of their activities grows, and many need help adjusting, according to Peter Baish, director of product management at ClearCross. Baish should know. Until the beginning of this year, he worked for U.S. Customs for 30 years, most recently heading up all of the agency's activities in the export area, including the Automated Export System. Now he hopes to add his wisdom and experience to the capabilities of Clear-Cross, a cross-border trade management software company based in Reston, Va. Baish's job at ClearCross is to advise shippers about how to automate their documentation and compliance with U.S. trade laws.'If an importer gets notice of a Customs audit, it's like the IRS coming in. I sit down with them and go through what to expect. There's a lot of unnecessary apprehension out there about what Customs is up to,' Baish said. 'And what Customs is up to is that they want to make sure everyone has their processes in line.' One of the ironies of the Customs Service, which in some ways has become as technologically sophisticated as the private sector, is that the private sector has had a field day recruiting current and former Customs staff. George Weise, former customs commissioner, is now a senior official at Vastera, the Dulles, Va.-based competitor of ClearCross. Sam Banks, former deputy director of customs, works for From2.com, and there are numerous other examples. Baish was ripe for the picking. After a decade in Washington, he got caught up in an agency-wide executive-level reshuffling initiated by commissioner Raymond Kelly. Baish was assigned to head the Customs Management Center in Chicago, a position he wasn't interested in, so he jumped ship. Baish said that as an former government employee now in the private sector, he sees the world from a very different perspective. 'It really turned my head around. It brought me around to (a different) way of thinking,' Baish said. Baish sees a fundamental re-orientation under way among exporting companies and their forwarders toward compliance, something they traditionally had to pay little, if any, attention to. They do now, because in the post-Cold War era the federal government has become very interested in what's being exported, and to whom. 'It's all being driven by compliance efforts by Customs and the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA),' Baish said. 'There's no place to hide any more. They're getting much more active.' The BXA now has 120 agents roaming the U.S. seeking out export law violations -- three times as many as five years ago, Baish points out. 'The export side of things has always been more relaxed,' Baish said. Whereas imports can't be released until Customs clears the documentation, with ex-ports the opposite is true. There's only a shippers export declaration if there's a problem. 'As export director (at Customs), one of the worst things was how terrible export reporting was,' he said. Before AES came into widespread use, Baish said, only 200f shippers export declarations were completely accurate. Baish recalls a time in the mid-'90s when he and Harvey Monk, the director of trade data at the Census Bureau, visited the border crossing at Laredo and stopped 20 trucks at random leaving the country for Mexico. Four of them had no documentation or no idea what was in the back of the truck. Eventually Baish had to instruct Customs officials to send any driver with bad export declarations to the back of the very long line to get over the border. After that, things improved a lot, he said. Export reporting has improved considerably, in large part because AES is programmed to reject SEDs that it senses are inaccurate. However, because the government's heightened vigilance on exports is still a relatively new phenomenon, many companies are still getting used to the new environment. For example, Baish said firms must make themselves familiar with new exporter-of-record rules, which hold the U.S. party that's benefiting the most financially from an export transaction responsible for ensuring the shipment doesn't end up in the wrong hands. U.S. companies have long sold on an Ex-Works basis in which the receiver takes possession of the goods at the U.S. company's loading dock and assumes all responsibility for paying fees such as the harbor maintenance tax as well as filing the shippers export declaration. That's now changed. He also said companies should prepare for the eventuality of a Customs audit, even if they haven't been notified. 'Shippers have got to start doing their own evaluation on how compliant they are. If they don't know the answer to these questions themselves, imagine how awkward it's going to be when Customs comes,' he said. Because of all the rule changes, Baish spends a considerable amount of time explaining to ClearCross's customers what's going on now as well as what's going to be happening in the future -- for instance, what to expect when the AES system expands to include carriers, and what is happening with Customs' costly computer upgrade called the Automated Commercial Environment. Baish cites the need for shippers to keep track of where components for parts came from, back several generations, through their suppliers and their suppliers' suppliers. The same part in an automobile might come from a variety of suppliers, some of which evoke Nafta exemptions, for instance, and some that don't. 'These days, you can't just say: hey, we're Ford, or we're Chrysler and we're compliant. They have to be able to really show that they're compliant,' Baish said.

Transport, Trade and Regulation News

A VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The shift of some capacity to the Asia-US trade to meet surging demand there is contributing to tighter vessel space in the ECSA market, forwarders tell the Journal of Commerce. </div>

The shift of some capacity to the Asia-US trade to meet surging demand there is contributing to tighter vessel space in the ECSA market, forwarders tell the Journal of Commerce.

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<div class="phx-topic">Shippers moving cargo from Asia to the East Coast of South America (ECSA) are dealing with peak season delays and a doubling of container spot rates in recent weeks amid equipment imbalances and congestion at major destination ports. The shift of some capacity to the Asia-US trade to meet surging demand there is also contributing to tighter vessel space in the ECSA market, forwarders tell the Journal of Commerce. Congestion at the Brazilian ports of Itapoa, Santos, Rio Grande and Pecem and at Buenos Aires in Argentina, has soaked up newly deployed tonnage, pushing container spot rates to $4,650 per FEU, up from $2,360 per FEU, in just the last two weeks on the eastbound leg of the trade, according to data from Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&amp;P Global. Forwarders say inbound space is booked for at least the next two weeks. Marcelo Machado, a freight forwarder at CSS Logistics in Brazil, said vessel slots for the first half of June were bought quickly as blank sailings exacerbated an already significant capacity reduction. “Blank sailings had a great deal to do with the situation,” said Machado. “Then carriers like Hyundai started directing vessels to the US. There was a lot of demand and carriers had to redirect vessels to the US.” <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="3255cb79-f66b-43bf-b624-083a7fa64a93"></dynamic-object></div>Container lines are seeking peak season surcharges (PSSs) on contract rates valid for more than 90 days. CMA CGM said on May 30 it would impose a $2,000-per-container surcharge on all cargo from Asia to ECSA from July 1 until further notice. The carrier said another $1,000-per-container surcharge would be introduced June 7, followed by a third surcharge of $2,000 per container on June 22. “Spot rates have been going up week by week,” Mauricio Fisch, director of Brazil logistics company Ocean Express, told the Journal of Commerce. <h3>Equipment, congestion difficulties </h3>As the Asia-ECSA trade is in peak season, rate increases have been further bolstered by equipment scarcity and congestion at the key Brazilian ports, which are experiencing “slightly disrupted operations,” according to Kuehne + Nagle’s SeaExplorer platform. Buenos Aires is seeing berthing delays of one to three days due to congestion, while Rio Grande, Itapoa, Santos and Pecem are seeing average vessel waiting times of about two to three days, said Kuehne + Nagle. Forwarders say congestion has been getting progressively worse since January, when an ongoing strike by Brazilian customs workers began, increasing cargo delays. “The customs [workers] are intensifying the strike and won’t [serve] any activities other than priority shipments that are time critical,” said another Brazil forwarder. Forwarders also report ECSA equipment issues, noting a lack of TEUs from Zim Integrated Shipping Services across all Brazilian ports and Cosco Shipping lacking volume at Rio de Janeiro. Cosco and Zim declined to comment. Another forwarder said carriers are prioritizing more lucrative spot market shipments over contracted cargo, “causing a lot of cargo to roll or miss equipment availability, leading to delays and forcing [later] bookings [at] higher rates.” <h3>Capacity management </h3>Forwarders say carriers are aggressively managing capacity, driven partly by volatile North American demand. HMM canceled several calls on its Far East-India-East Latin America service due to vessels being redeployed on the Asia-US trade, Fisch said. Asia-ECSA also saw more May blanks, with 12.6% of the total capacity blanked and 250,000 TEUs of active capacity, according to maritime visibility platform eeSea. In April, only 2.8% of the lane’s capacity was blanked. Projections from eeSea show capacity is due to increase on the trade this month. While most carriers increased capacity on direct services quarter over quarter, Hapag-Lloyd and Cosco were outliers, choosing to remove approximately one-third and one-fifth of capacity, respectively, in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, according to MDS Transmodal. <h3>West Coast also seeing impacts </h3>Seeing similar increases, the Platts index shows North Asia to West Coast South America (WCSA) rates rose 63% in the past two weeks to reach $3,700 per FEU amid equipment and space issues, with forwarders reporting rates as high as $5,000 per FEU. CMA CGM said it would impose two PSSs in June for cargo from Asia to WCSA, Central America and the Caribbean — $1,000 per FEU on June 7 and $2,000 per FEU on June 22. Meanwhile, Valparaiso in Chile and Buenaventura in Colombia are considered “slightly disrupted” by SeaExplorer, with vessel waiting times of about three and four days on average, respectively. Peru’s Port of Callao is “heavily disrupted” due to local street closures, which could increase port entry times by 30%, Kuehne + Nagle said. Additionally, a forwarder noted equipment scarcity for all container equipment from CMA CGM throughout WCSA. The carrier declined to comment. Contact Laura Robb at <a href="mailto:Laura.Robb@spglobal.com">laura.robb@spglobal.com</a>.  Contact Keith Wallis at <a href="mailto: keithwallis@hotmail.com">keithwallis@hotmail.com</a>. </div>

Shippers moving cargo from Asia to the East Coast of South America (ECSA) are dealing with peak season delays and a doubling of container spot rates in recent weeks amid equipment imbalances and congestion at major destination ports. The shift of some capacity to the Asia-US trade to meet surging demand there is also contributing to tighter vessel space in the ECSA market, forwarders tell the Journal of Commerce. Congestion at the Brazilian ports of Itapoa, Santos, Rio Grande and Pecem and at Buenos Aires in Argentina, has soaked up newly deployed tonnage, pushing container spot rates to $4,650 per FEU, up from $2,360 per FEU, in just the last two weeks on the eastbound leg of the trade, according to data from Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global. Forwarders say inbound space is booked for at least the next two weeks. Marcelo Machado, a freight forwarder at CSS Logistics in Brazil, said vessel slots for the first half of June were bought quickly as blank sailings exacerbated an already significant capacity reduction. “Blank sailings had a great deal to do with the situation,” said Machado. “Then carriers like Hyundai started directing vessels to the US. There was a lot of demand and carriers had to redirect vessels to the US.” Container lines are seeking peak season surcharges (PSSs) on contract rates valid for more than 90 days. CMA CGM said on May 30 it would impose a $2,000-per-container surcharge on all cargo from Asia to ECSA from July 1 until further notice. The carrier said another $1,000-per-container surcharge would be introduced June 7, followed by a third surcharge of $2,000 per container on June 22. “Spot rates have been going up week by week,” Mauricio Fisch, director of Brazil logistics company Ocean Express, told the Journal of Commerce. Equipment, congestion difficulties As the Asia-ECSA trade is in peak season, rate increases have been further bolstered by equipment scarcity and congestion at the key Brazilian ports, which are experiencing “slightly disrupted operations,” according to Kuehne + Nagle’s SeaExplorer platform. Buenos Aires is seeing berthing delays of one to three days due to congestion, while Rio Grande, Itapoa, Santos and Pecem are seeing average vessel waiting times of about two to three days, said Kuehne + Nagle. Forwarders say congestion has been getting progressively worse since January, when an ongoing strike by Brazilian customs workers began, increasing cargo delays. “The customs [workers] are intensifying the strike and won’t [serve] any activities other than priority shipments that are time critical,” said another Brazil forwarder. Forwarders also report ECSA equipment issues, noting a lack of TEUs from Zim Integrated Shipping Services across all Brazilian ports and Cosco Shipping lacking volume at Rio de Janeiro. Cosco and Zim declined to comment. Another forwarder said carriers are prioritizing more lucrative spot market shipments over contracted cargo, “causing a lot of cargo to roll or miss equipment availability, leading to delays and forcing [later] bookings [at] higher rates.” Capacity management Forwarders say carriers are aggressively managing capacity, driven partly by volatile North American demand. HMM canceled several calls on its Far East-India-East Latin America service due to vessels being redeployed on the Asia-US trade, Fisch said. Asia-ECSA also saw more May blanks, with 12.6% of the total capacity blanked and 250,000 TEUs of active capacity, according to maritime visibility platform eeSea. In April, only 2.8% of the lane’s capacity was blanked. Projections from eeSea show capacity is due to increase on the trade this month. While most carriers increased capacity on direct services quarter over quarter, Hapag-Lloyd and Cosco were outliers, choosing to remove approximately one-third and one-fifth of capacity, respectively, in the second quarter compared with the first quarter, according to MDS Transmodal. West Coast also seeing impacts Seeing similar increases, the Platts index shows North Asia to West Coast South America (WCSA) rates rose 63% in the past two weeks to reach $3,700 per FEU amid equipment and space issues, with forwarders reporting rates as high as $5,000 per FEU. CMA CGM said it would impose two PSSs in June for cargo from Asia to WCSA, Central America and the Caribbean — $1,000 per FEU on June 7 and $2,000 per FEU on June 22. Meanwhile, Valparaiso in Chile and Buenaventura in Colombia are considered “slightly disrupted” by SeaExplorer, with vessel waiting times of about three and four days on average, respectively. Peru’s Port of Callao is “heavily disrupted” due to local street closures, which could increase port entry times by 30%, Kuehne + Nagle said. Additionally, a forwarder noted equipment scarcity for all container equipment from CMA CGM throughout WCSA. The carrier declined to comment. Contact Laura Robb at laura.robb@spglobal.com .  Contact Keith Wallis at keithwallis@hotmail.com .

Maritime

Container Shipping News

Port News

Forwarding

International ports

Container lines

China-ECSA spot rates climb amid bullish market pressure

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The hub in northern Germany is expecting rapid volume growth for the rest of the year following a record first quarter spurred on by the launch of the carrier alliance. </div>

The hub in northern Germany is expecting rapid volume growth for the rest of the year following a record first quarter spurred on by the launch of the carrier alliance.

<div class="phx-topic">MUNICH — The establishment of Gemini Cooperation’s hub in Wilhelmshaven has been “a game changer” for the north German port, with container volume rising rapidly since the carrier alliance was launched in February. A record 300,000 TEUs crossed the port’s wharves in the first quarter, and with the Gemini business of partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd being directed through Wilhelmshaven, the volume will continue to grow rapidly through the year, according to Marc-Oliver Hauswald, CEO of JadeWeserPort Wilhelmshaven. “In Germany, Gemini has two hubs, one in Wilhelmshaven and the other in Bremerhaven, so the biggest vessels in their network are now coming to these ports,” Hauswald told the Journal of Commerce at the Transport Logistic exhibition in Munich this week. “This is a game changer for us.” JadeWeserPort is responsible for the marketing and management of the industrial and logistics areas in Wilhelmshaven. “If you multiply first quarter volume by four quarters, you get to 1.2 million TEUs, and with the first Gemini vessel starting in the middle of February, we are expecting to handle over 1 million TEUs,” Hauswald said. The port handled 840,000 TEUs in 2024, and although Hauswald said it was “not very much,” he noted it was a record annual result for the gateway. Wilhelmshaven is Germany’s only deepwater container port. Hapag-Lloyd has held a 30% stake in the container terminal there and a 50% stake in its rail terminal since 2022, with the remaining shares held by Hamburg-based Eurogate, the operator of the container terminal. Another driver of volume for Wilhelmshaven is the China-Europe Express service that provides a direct service with Ningbo routed via the Suez Canal. It was launched by Kawa Shipping in January and offers a 26-day transit time. Kawa started with one 5,000-TEU vessel in January, adding a second last week; a third is scheduled to join the fleet by the end of the year. “The capacity of the vessels are not high compared to the 24,000-TEU ships on Asia-Europe, but even when the big ships call, they have container exchanges similar to 5,000 TEUs, so it is comparable,” Hauswald said. <h3>Automation plans </h3>Automation features prominently in the plans for Wilhelmshaven. The existing port was designed for a capacity of 2.7 million TEUs, but under Eurogate’s automation plans, the handling capacity will increase to 4.5 million TEUs. “In the future, maybe in five or 10 years, the major shipping lines will only go to the ports that have automated systems,” Hauswald said. “In Asia, you can see more and more ports becoming automated because it’s a guarantee of fast and efficient operations at a lower cost.” Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

MUNICH — The establishment of Gemini Cooperation’s hub in Wilhelmshaven has been “a game changer” for the north German port, with container volume rising rapidly since the carrier alliance was launched in February. A record 300,000 TEUs crossed the port’s wharves in the first quarter, and with the Gemini business of partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd being directed through Wilhelmshaven, the volume will continue to grow rapidly through the year, according to Marc-Oliver Hauswald, CEO of JadeWeserPort Wilhelmshaven. “In Germany, Gemini has two hubs, one in Wilhelmshaven and the other in Bremerhaven, so the biggest vessels in their network are now coming to these ports,” Hauswald told the Journal of Commerce at the Transport Logistic exhibition in Munich this week. “This is a game changer for us.” JadeWeserPort is responsible for the marketing and management of the industrial and logistics areas in Wilhelmshaven. “If you multiply first quarter volume by four quarters, you get to 1.2 million TEUs, and with the first Gemini vessel starting in the middle of February, we are expecting to handle over 1 million TEUs,” Hauswald said. The port handled 840,000 TEUs in 2024, and although Hauswald said it was “not very much,” he noted it was a record annual result for the gateway. Wilhelmshaven is Germany’s only deepwater container port. Hapag-Lloyd has held a 30% stake in the container terminal there and a 50% stake in its rail terminal since 2022, with the remaining shares held by Hamburg-based Eurogate, the operator of the container terminal. Another driver of volume for Wilhelmshaven is the China-Europe Express service that provides a direct service with Ningbo routed via the Suez Canal. It was launched by Kawa Shipping in January and offers a 26-day transit time. Kawa started with one 5,000-TEU vessel in January, adding a second last week; a third is scheduled to join the fleet by the end of the year. “The capacity of the vessels are not high compared to the 24,000-TEU ships on Asia-Europe, but even when the big ships call, they have container exchanges similar to 5,000 TEUs, so it is comparable,” Hauswald said. Automation plans Automation features prominently in the plans for Wilhelmshaven. The existing port was designed for a capacity of 2.7 million TEUs, but under Eurogate’s automation plans, the handling capacity will increase to 4.5 million TEUs. “In the future, maybe in five or 10 years, the major shipping lines will only go to the ports that have automated systems,” Hauswald said. “In Asia, you can see more and more ports becoming automated because it’s a guarantee of fast and efficient operations at a lower cost.” Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Port infrastructure

Gemini ‘game changer’ for Wilhelmshaven as volume soars

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Lower LTL volumes are likely in the coming months, but pricing remains elevated, according to producer price index data. </div>

Lower LTL volumes are likely in the coming months, but pricing remains elevated, according to producer price index data.

<div class="phx-topic">Soft demand for less-than-truckload (LTL) freight and service in the US appears poised to get even softer, as publicly owned LTL providers prepare to release mid-quarter market reports. Shippers should expect volumes to vary across carriers, but pricing is likely to stay at its current elevated levels, with the US long-distance LTL producer price index (PPI) at 259 for the past three months, a record high and about 5% higher than a year ago. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="9014abeb-369b-4328-97ae-ee1793647b6e"></dynamic-object></div>Shipments and tonnage both decreased year over year in May at Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL), the <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/journal-of-commerce-rankings-us-ltl-sector-defies-soft-demand-regains-traction-6010008">second-largest US LTL trucking company</a>, ODFL said Wednesday. ODFL reported an 8.4% decrease in LTL tonnage and a 6.8% drop in LTL shipments per day Revenue fell 5.8% year over year in May, but LTL revenue per hundredweight, excluding fuel surcharges, rose 5.6%. ODFL remains one of the most disciplined LTL carriers when it comes to pricing, and its operating ratio — a measure of profitability — is in the 70s. A drop in LTL revenue, or shipments, may not point to a broader market slump, but may reflect a carrier’s refusal to lower rates to get freight at the expense of profitability. Last year, the aggregate LTL shipment count among the Top 25 LTL Carriers rose 2.5%. The drop in demand ODFL saw in May comes as US manufacturers cope with high input inventories and fluctuations in orders as vendors frontload freight to avoid high US tariffs. Industrial manufacturing makes up the bulk of LTL freight in the US. The S&amp;P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 52 in May, up from 50.2 in April and the fifth straight month the PMI has been above 50, the breaking point dividing expansion from contraction. But that’s not necessarily a sign of industrial health. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="56be088e-5b54-4d09-add3-f841e65711ec"></dynamic-object></div>“The rise in the PMI during May masks worrying developments under the hood of the US manufacturing economy,” said Chris Williamson, S&amp;P Global’s chief business economist. “While growth of new orders picked up and suppliers were reportedly busier as companies built up their inventory levels at an unprecedented rate, the common theme was a temporary surge in demand as manufacturers and their customers worry about supply issues and rising prices,” Williamson said in a statement this week. That surge in demand and inventories also coincides with frontloading of goods from China and elsewhere during a pair of 90-day pauses on higher US tariffs, pauses that will expire in July and August, barring further extensions or the successful negotiation of trade deals. While the S&amp;P Global monthly US Manufacturing PMI has shown tepid expansion in 2025, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) PMI has been in contraction for four months, dropping 0.2 percentage point in May to 48.5. The ISM inventories index dropped into contraction after three positive months as businesses completed frontloading of goods ahead of tariffs, ISM said. Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

Soft demand for less-than-truckload (LTL) freight and service in the US appears poised to get even softer, as publicly owned LTL providers prepare to release mid-quarter market reports. Shippers should expect volumes to vary across carriers, but pricing is likely to stay at its current elevated levels, with the US long-distance LTL producer price index (PPI) at 259 for the past three months, a record high and about 5% higher than a year ago. Shipments and tonnage both decreased year over year in May at Old Dominion Freight Line (ODFL), the second-largest US LTL trucking company , ODFL said Wednesday. ODFL reported an 8.4% decrease in LTL tonnage and a 6.8% drop in LTL shipments per day Revenue fell 5.8% year over year in May, but LTL revenue per hundredweight, excluding fuel surcharges, rose 5.6%. ODFL remains one of the most disciplined LTL carriers when it comes to pricing, and its operating ratio — a measure of profitability — is in the 70s. A drop in LTL revenue, or shipments, may not point to a broader market slump, but may reflect a carrier’s refusal to lower rates to get freight at the expense of profitability. Last year, the aggregate LTL shipment count among the Top 25 LTL Carriers rose 2.5%. The drop in demand ODFL saw in May comes as US manufacturers cope with high input inventories and fluctuations in orders as vendors frontload freight to avoid high US tariffs. Industrial manufacturing makes up the bulk of LTL freight in the US. The S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 52 in May, up from 50.2 in April and the fifth straight month the PMI has been above 50, the breaking point dividing expansion from contraction. But that’s not necessarily a sign of industrial health. “The rise in the PMI during May masks worrying developments under the hood of the US manufacturing economy,” said Chris Williamson, S&P Global’s chief business economist. “While growth of new orders picked up and suppliers were reportedly busier as companies built up their inventory levels at an unprecedented rate, the common theme was a temporary surge in demand as manufacturers and their customers worry about supply issues and rising prices,” Williamson said in a statement this week. That surge in demand and inventories also coincides with frontloading of goods from China and elsewhere during a pair of 90-day pauses on higher US tariffs, pauses that will expire in July and August, barring further extensions or the successful negotiation of trade deals. While the S&P Global monthly US Manufacturing PMI has shown tepid expansion in 2025, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) PMI has been in contraction for four months, dropping 0.2 percentage point in May to 48.5. The ISM inventories index dropped into contraction after three positive months as businesses completed frontloading of goods ahead of tariffs, ISM said. Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

Trucking News

Surface

Weak US industrial activity casts cold light on LTL demand outlook

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Larger components are pushing handling boundaries with an increasing number of locations too small to accommodate growing cargo sizes.</div>

Larger components are pushing handling boundaries with an increasing number of locations too small to accommodate growing cargo sizes.

<div class="phx-topic">The increasing size and complexity of project cargoes are demanding increasingly sophisticated engineering solutions and pushing the boundaries of transport capabilities, project cargo experts say.Speaking to the Journal of Commerce, Hagen Hennig, technical director at dteq Transport Engineering Solutions, described project cargo as “getting more engineering-heavy.” Where dteq only needed two engineers to support the group at start up, the company now counts 50-plus engineers. “That’s a good indication of how the cargo and the project requirements have evolved,” Hennig said. He also noted the impact of that growth on multipurpose vessel capabilities. “Vessels need to be stronger to accommodate these larger cargoes, which can be seen in the increase in crane capacities and the growing fleet of deck carriers,” Hennig said.Cosmatos Group last year moved the largest cargo it had moved in its 53-year history, handling a 690-ton, nine-meter-high component. Elisabeth Cosmatos, CEO of Cosmatos Group and president of The Heavy Lift Group (THLG), described the move as a “milestone,” but also a challenge. There is also a growing emphasis on technical know-how, with Hennig noting the transport engineering mindset in clients is increasing. “It is not only about having the best product, it is also about being able to transport that product safely and cost efficiently to its destination,” he said.Hennig stressed the role of engineering in expanding possibilities. “With engineering you can always push boundaries further,” he said, giving the example of regular transportation of 1000-plus-ton nacelles for the wind energy market that were unimaginable previously. <h3>Infrastructure limitations pose challenges</h3>Still, both Hennig and colleague Boris Dykiert, commercial director with dteq Transport Engineering Solutions, acknowledged inherent limitations. “It’s important to consider the existing infrastructure and environment too,” Dykiert said. “For example, it is already very difficult to get out of some ports in Europe to [the] site with the latest generation of wind blades due to tight turns.” Hennig added that there is a limit to maximum size depending on available infrastructure.“If the project is next to the port and that port is deep with good moorings, that helps,” he said. “But the last mile needs to be there, too. That will determine the maximum cargo envelope.”Speaking on a panel at Breakbulk Europe in mid-May, Richard Kaladji, head of the project logistics department at Air Liquide, affirmed the trend of increasing cargo sizes and underlined the heightened risks involved. “Today, the challenge is greater as you cannot mess up,” he said. “You have to validate the solution many times as the stakes are higher with larger cargoes.”Contact Carly Fields at <a href="mailto:carly.fields@spglobal.com">carly.fields@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

The increasing size and complexity of project cargoes are demanding increasingly sophisticated engineering solutions and pushing the boundaries of transport capabilities, project cargo experts say. Speaking to the Journal of Commerce, Hagen Hennig, technical director at dteq Transport Engineering Solutions, described project cargo as “getting more engineering-heavy.” Where dteq only needed two engineers to support the group at start up, the company now counts 50-plus engineers. “That’s a good indication of how the cargo and the project requirements have evolved,” Hennig said. He also noted the impact of that growth on multipurpose vessel capabilities. “Vessels need to be stronger to accommodate these larger cargoes, which can be seen in the increase in crane capacities and the growing fleet of deck carriers,” Hennig said. Cosmatos Group last year moved the largest cargo it had moved in its 53-year history, handling a 690-ton, nine-meter-high component. Elisabeth Cosmatos, CEO of Cosmatos Group and president of The Heavy Lift Group (THLG), described the move as a “milestone,” but also a challenge. There is also a growing emphasis on technical know-how, with Hennig noting the transport engineering mindset in clients is increasing. “It is not only about having the best product, it is also about being able to transport that product safely and cost efficiently to its destination,” he said. Hennig stressed the role of engineering in expanding possibilities. “With engineering you can always push boundaries further,” he said, giving the example of regular transportation of 1000-plus-ton nacelles for the wind energy market that were unimaginable previously. Infrastructure limitations pose challenges Still, both Hennig and colleague Boris Dykiert, commercial director with dteq Transport Engineering Solutions, acknowledged inherent limitations. “It’s important to consider the existing infrastructure and environment too,” Dykiert said. “For example, it is already very difficult to get out of some ports in Europe to [the] site with the latest generation of wind blades due to tight turns.” Hennig added that there is a limit to maximum size depending on available infrastructure. “If the project is next to the port and that port is deep with good moorings, that helps,” he said. “But the last mile needs to be there, too. That will determine the maximum cargo envelope.” Speaking on a panel at Breakbulk Europe in mid-May, Richard Kaladji, head of the project logistics department at Air Liquide, affirmed the trend of increasing cargo sizes and underlined the heightened risks involved. “Today, the challenge is greater as you cannot mess up,” he said. “You have to validate the solution many times as the stakes are higher with larger cargoes.” Contact Carly Fields at carly.fields@spglobal.com .

Energy projects

Project cargo

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Growing project cargo scale testing transport limitations, but driving innovation

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The carrier continues to ramp up its non-ocean businesses that were acquired from Performance Team with the lease of a new warehouse located about 10 miles from the Port of Philadelphia.</div>

The carrier continues to ramp up its non-ocean businesses that were acquired from Performance Team with the lease of a new warehouse located about 10 miles from the Port of Philadelphia.

<div class="phx-topic">Maersk has added to its North American portfolio with the lease of one of the largest warehouses in southern New Jersey. The move comes as Maersk flagged better growth in its warehousing and related businesses during its most recent earnings release. Maersk confirmed media reports that it leased the 1.2 million-square-foot Box Park Logistics Center, located about 10 miles from the Port of Philadelphia and approximately 80 miles from the Port of New York and New Jersey. The facility, built in 2023, has 215 dock doors and can be expanded by another 300,000 square feet. The region where the warehouse is located has seen new construction plummet amid increasing industrial property vacancies in the Northeast US. Commercial realtor CBRE said in May that new warehouse construction in the south New Jersey-Philadelphia metro region totaled 11.6 million square feet in the first quarter of 2025, down 25.3% from the fourth quarter of 2024. Vacancy rates for warehouses in the Northeast reached 7.6% in the first quarter, compared with about 3% in 2022, marking 12 quarters of increasing vacancy rates. Maersk said in its first-quarter earnings release that it expects vacancy rates to remain close to the long-term 7% average as new construction better matches demand. Maersk’s fulfillment business, comprised mostly of the <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/maersk-acquisition-deepens-north-american-warehouse-reach-5213428">former Performance Team business</a>, saw first-quarter revenue fall 7% to $1.32 billion as it reorganized its last-mile and middle-mile business in North America. However, Maersk Chief Executive Vincent Clerc said the company’s warehousing and e-commerce fulfillment “increased in volumes with growth in new customers.” Maersk’s contract logistics business was also more profitable in the 2025 first quarter, with operating profit margin reaching 4.1% from 1.5% a year earlier. Clerc said warehousing and e-commerce fulfillment helped drive the better results. Contact Michael Angell at <a href="mailto:michael.angell@spglobal.com">michael.angell@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Maersk has added to its North American portfolio with the lease of one of the largest warehouses in southern New Jersey. The move comes as Maersk flagged better growth in its warehousing and related businesses during its most recent earnings release. Maersk confirmed media reports that it leased the 1.2 million-square-foot Box Park Logistics Center, located about 10 miles from the Port of Philadelphia and approximately 80 miles from the Port of New York and New Jersey. The facility, built in 2023, has 215 dock doors and can be expanded by another 300,000 square feet. The region where the warehouse is located has seen new construction plummet amid increasing industrial property vacancies in the Northeast US. Commercial realtor CBRE said in May that new warehouse construction in the south New Jersey-Philadelphia metro region totaled 11.6 million square feet in the first quarter of 2025, down 25.3% from the fourth quarter of 2024. Vacancy rates for warehouses in the Northeast reached 7.6% in the first quarter, compared with about 3% in 2022, marking 12 quarters of increasing vacancy rates. Maersk said in its first-quarter earnings release that it expects vacancy rates to remain close to the long-term 7% average as new construction better matches demand. Maersk’s fulfillment business, comprised mostly of the former Performance Team business , saw first-quarter revenue fall 7% to $1.32 billion as it reorganized its last-mile and middle-mile business in North America. However, Maersk Chief Executive Vincent Clerc said the company’s warehousing and e-commerce fulfillment “increased in volumes with growth in new customers.” Maersk’s contract logistics business was also more profitable in the 2025 first quarter, with operating profit margin reaching 4.1% from 1.5% a year earlier. Clerc said warehousing and e-commerce fulfillment helped drive the better results. Contact Michael Angell at michael.angell@spglobal.com .

Maersk’s contract logistics business adds New Jersey warehouse

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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