Container lines

Shippers of trans-Pacific ocean freight trying to avoid crippling West Coast port congestion are turning to air cargo in such numbers that forwarders report prices going “through the roof.”

CSAV, nearing its merger with Hapag-Lloyd, cut its third quarter operating losses by 24 percent year-over-year but still ended the third quarter in the red, the Chilean carrier announced said Wednesday

Tougher Chinese regulations on imported wastepaper shipments helped drive down U.S. containerized exports in September.

The Brazil-U.S. Business Council, which is affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has signed a cooperation agreement with the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry to conduct studies on a potential trade agreement and report back to both governments on the results.

Drewry's benchmark spot rate from Hong Kong to Los Angeles lost all pricing gains associated with an Oct. 15 trans-Pacific general rate increase, and will rely on next week's Nov. 15 GRI to make up some ground.

Maersk Line is reviewing the ocean and inland services it provides in the trans-Pacific trade — a notoriously high-cost and unprofitable trade lane for container lines — with an eye to increasing the rates it gets for those services or eliminating those that don’t make money.

The speed at which the oil price fell took Maersk by surprise as bunker fuel dropped $20 in the past month, but Maersk Group CEO Nils Andersen said customers would benefit from the lower prices.

Container ship capacity jumped 250 percent in the past five years in the Asia to West Africa trade, according to a new report from Alphaliner.

Maersk Group Chief Executive Nils Andersen reiterated Tuesday that the 2M vessel-sharing agreement between Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Co. will launch in January.

The global idle container ship fleet has barely changed over the past two weeks with unemployment still at a four-year low, Alphaliner reports.

Merchandise imports will slow down in November, but probably not soon enough to help West Coast ports dig out of the congestion problems that continue because of operational issues and work slowdowns by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Amid an environment of slowing demand and overcapacity, container lines have unrealized opportunities to improve profit margins by overhauling internal culture and expanding the scope of alliances, according to Boston Consulting Group.

The Panama Canal container shipping route has become the less-popular route for carriers sailing from Asia to the U.S. East Coast for the first time in history, according to new data from Drewry Maritime Research, with more than half of capacity in the trade sailing via the Suez Canal.

China’s exports during October continued to show solid growth compared to the same month last year, but comparisons for November and December are set to be complicated by the chronic over-reporting of mainland exports to Hong Kong late last year to evade currency controls.

United Arab Shipping Co. is expanding its refrigerated container fleet as it targets new business in South America.

Volumes were down in September on the majority of trade lanes leaving Asia, with the exception of lanes to North America and Australia, according to Container Trades Statistics.

Finnlines posted its best quarterly result in eight years and said full-year earnings could be the best since 2000 as it continues to boost cargo volumes in the face of economic uncertainty in its core Baltic Sea market.

Japan’s Parliament gave the green light to a free trade agreement with Australia on Friday, paving the way for the trade pact to take effect early next year.

Matson said growth in its core Hawaii market helped fuel increases in the carrier’s third-quarter volume, revenue and profit, and that it expects year-over-year improvement in the fourth quarter.

Maersk Line has joined 10 other container lines and shipowners in a group known as the Trident Alliance to test enforcement of the new low-sulfur fuel regulations that go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, in so-called emission control areas in North Europe and North America.

Rates from Asia to Northern Europe nearly doubled this week while trans-Atlantic rates dipped to new lows, according to the latest readings from the World Container Index.

The transition by the world’s container carriers to operating larger ships and the new alliance structures are significantly impacting hub ports, said Randy Chen, Wan Hai Lines assistant to the president.

If China’s largest trade show, the Canton Fair, is a true barometer of how the mainland’s export performance will shape up in the next six months, the signs are not positive.

Hapag-Lloyd is a step closer to merging with CSAV after Brazilian regulators gave the go-ahead for the duo to create the fourth-largest container line in the world.

The global order book-to-fleet ratio is the lowest it’s been in 15 years, Alphaliner said today, though it could soon rise as carriers are expected to place orders for larger ships later this year.

The international trade association that represents the world’s freight forwarders and logistics service providers, FIATA, has called on container shipping lines to provide greater clarity on the ever increasing variety of surcharges that they apply.

Steadily dropping bunker fuel prices have raised the intriguing possibility of slow-steaming carriers starting to speed up ships, which would have the immediate effect of injecting huge amounts of additional capacity into a heavily oversupplied market.

Shipping lines that carry U.S. exports to Asia are expected to adjust their fuel surcharges on Jan. 1 to reflect new low-sulfur content rules and changes in operating conditions in the westbound trans-Pacific.

China’s containerized exports to the U.S. are showing significantly higher growth this year even as China’s economy is expanding at its slowest pace since the financial crisis and when 2014 may show the slowest annual growth since the early 1990s.

Canceled sailings and shrinking volumes are injecting more volatility on the Asia-east coast South America trade, Drewry says.

Intra-Mediterranean container volume is expected to be flat this year at 14.9 million 20-foot-equivalent units, but rise to 15.6 million TEUs next year and 17.1 million TEUs by 2017, according to the Dutch consulting firm Dynamar.

The much-hyped north-south liner routes aren’t living up to their billing as the future of container shipping in the new low-growth environment that followed the global financial crisis.

The three largest Japanese container lines, MOL and “K” Line and NYK Line, all reported improved container shipping revenues in the six months from April through September but saw profits go in different directions. The results showed the effects of limited improvement in Asia to Europe rates but revealed challenges in port congestion in Asia and cascading of larger ships into north-south trades as mega-vessels are delivered into Asia-Europe.

The idle container ship fleet likely will stick at its current four-year low as ocean carriers are reluctant to pull services during the slack winter season, according to Alphaliner.

NOL Group today reported a third-quarter net loss of $23 million but managed to reduce its core earnings before taxes by 31 percent through cost management and efficiency that have delivered $290 million in savings so far this year.

Growing international trade and rising container volumes and revenue during the third quarter was reflected in the financial results of China’s top two carriers — China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL) and China Cosco.

Ten more CMA CGM ships are scheduled for modifications to their bows that will help the company save nearly 6 percent on fuel, the French carrier said.

Hapag-Lloyd again raised its “on-carriage congestion surcharge” for import shipments handled at Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Nhava Sheva), indicating that India’s largest container handler is still battling clogged railyards and that equipment turn times for ocean carriers have yet to improve.

With the launch of its SeaLand inter-Americas service approaching on Jan. 1, Maersk has begun transitioning its affected customer base from Maersk to the newly created SeaLand unit.

Atlantic Container Line said the first of five new ships in a top-to-bottom fleet upgrade are on track to enter service next summer, followed with an additional delivery every two months until its current fleet of 1980s-era ships is replaced.