Latest news

Orient Overseas Container Line reported a sharp drop in container volume and plunging revenue on the Asia-Europe trade in 2015, with a particularly dismal fourth quarter dragging down figures on the oversupplied route.

Two weeks out from Chinese New Year and there is still no evidence of the traditional surge in cargo exports from China before the long holiday, with spot freight rates on Shanghai to North Europe and the Mediterranean declining sharply for the third week running.

International container traffic in the Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle and Tacoma increased 8.4 percent in December from December 2014, driven primarily by strong exports.

Sluggish economic conditions derailed Canadian Pacific Railway’s domestic intermodal success, pulling down traffic 9 percent and contributing to a 29 percent profit decline.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services beat both Wall Street and Main Street in the fourth quarter, winning more business and hauling more freight when overall U.S. shipment volumes were dropping.

Union Pacific Railroad said high inventories, a decline in premium shipments and sluggish retail sales are pulling down its intermodal volume and revenue from the hauling of containers.

The Port of Long Beach is guiding more than $4 billion in investments that will keep the second-largest U.S. container port nimble so it can respond to shifts in global manufacturing and trade patterns, pending mergers among ocean carriers and the arrival of the biggest vessels to call in North America, the port’s CEO Jon Slangerup said in his State of the Port address.

The rate of container cargo traffic decline at Russian seaports is slowing but still remains high, with volume plummeting by 25.1 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the Russian Association of Commercial Seaports.

The Philadelphia Regional Port Authority has issued a short list of potential developers of a marine terminal on 196 acres at the former Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Gate operations at Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal, which took a hit due to the abrupt disruption earlier this week, have picked up speed over the past two days, according to the latest update from terminal operator DP World Nhava Sheva.

Container lines are well known for making almost any concession to get or keep a customer, from dropping rates to offering extended free time on terminals, extended use of containers, or late cutoffs at gates. But they will have no room to budge on the requirement that a certified weight based on an actual measurement accompany every container tendered to the carrier as of July 1.

APM Terminals has finalized an agreement to establish a joint venture that will invest over $200 million in upgrading and expanding a container terminal in Cartagena, Colombia’s largest port.

DP World and the Russian Direct Investment Fund today announced the launch of a joint venture that will target investments in ports, transportation and logistics infrastructure in Russia.

When the Panama Canal’s third set of larger locks open to commercial traffic this spring, the massive expansion project will be more than a year and a half behind the original target date of October 2014 and an estimated $150 million over the $5.25 billion budget set 10 years ago.

Global changes in container shipping are confronting the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission with some of the most difficult decisions in its 55-year history. How FMC Chairman Mario Cordero and his four fellow commissioners respond this year and next could determine how the industry deals with carrier consolidation, the increasing influence of vessel-sharing alliances and U.S. port congestion.

International Container Transshipment Terminal, or Vallarpadam, at India’s Port of Cochin expanded its intermodal freight access earlier this week when state-owned Container Corp. of India introduced a weekly train service connecting the DP World facility with Coimbatore, a major southern India inland point.

The number of idled container vessels over 500 twenty-foot equivalent units edged slightly higher in the first two weeks of the year and is set to increase as carriers axe sailings in the run-up to the Chinese New Year holiday, according to Alphaliner.

Greece has accepted a “significantly improved” offer from China’s Cosco Group for the state’s majority stake in the Piraeus Port Authority.

International Container Terminal Services Inc. is expanding its footprint in Africa and the Middle East with two new terminals under development and an eye for more opportunities in the region.

Ma Zehua, the man who replaced Wei Jiafu as chairman and party secretary for China Cosco Holdings in 2013 when the charismatic executive quit unexpectedly, stepped down Thursday as chairman of the mainland’s largest carrier.

This year’s capacity growth will be the lowest ever recorded for the global container shipping fleet, according to Alphaliner, welcome news for an industry already buried under a deluge of excess vessels that cannot be filled.

Despite watershed changes taking place in the shipping industry in 2016, the market share of containerized imports of East, West and Gulf Coast ports this year is set look a lot like it did during the second half of 2015, according to port and industry analysts.

Container volume at the Port of Charleston rose 10.1 percent last year, to 1.97 million 20-foot-equivalent units, but the port authority’s chief executive expects slower growth during the first half of 2016.

New Orleans Cold Storage has more than doubled the size of its facility near Charleston, South Carolina, with an 81,000-square-foot expansion that more than doubles its blast-freezing capacity.

Small trucking companies grumble that federal regulation is pushing them out of business, but a new survey shows which states are also making it harder for owner-operators and small fleet operators to keep rolling.

Two of three of the most important Brazilian port deepening projects are advancing, paving the way for container lines to eventually bring the larger vessels that will soon to be able to traverse the larger Panama Canal locks to the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Recife.

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings’ plan to acquire competitor Southern Air Holdings will diversify the air cargo carriers’ fleet, strengthen its relationship with its biggest customer, DHL Express, and position it to grow in the U.S. and globally, according to a BB&T analyst.

With China’s slowing economy casting shadows across the global maritime and trade sector, news this week of multiple investments in African port and supply chain infrastructure points to one place where industry leaders are clearly turning for growth opportunities.

U.S. truck driver hours-of-service rules suspended by Congress won’t be put back in place any time soon, and not without consultation with trucking “stakeholders,” a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration official told trucking and logistics executives today.

Russian intermodal container operator Ruscon posted a traffic increase in the third-quarter of 2015 because of new services, more shipments of refrigerated cargo and new customers.

Yung-Fa Chang, who founded Evergreen Group with a second-hand freighter and built the Taiwan-based company into a global ocean, air and land transportation and business conglomerate, died Jan. 20 in Taipei. He was 88.

Dockworker unions at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust on Tuesday agreed to recall their previous notice calling for a stoppage on Jan. 20 over demands tied to medical benefits following an intervention by port management that averted disruptions that would have placed more pressure on shippers and ocean carriers using India’s biggest container handler.

Contship Italia’s container traffic declined in 2015 but it maintained its leading market position in Italy as four of its five domestic terminals posted higher volumes.

Cargolux is to invest $77 million in Cargolux China, a new joint venture carrier, scheduled to start operations in 2017.

Greece’s privatization agency will today weigh an improved offer from China’s Cosco Pacific for a majority stake in the port of Piraeus.

China is about to begin its latest Five Year Plan, and while it is easy to dismiss the planned approach as a Soviet-style relic of the past, the next few years will be critical to a country undergoing a chaotic transition from an export and industry focus to a consumption and services model.

Ports America and its joint venture partner announced Tuesday it will terminate in March its 50-year lease for the Outer Harbor Terminal in Oakland as the company concentrates its investments in other U.S. container ports to prepare for today’s mega-ships operated by powerful carrier alliances, according to Peter Ford, chief strategy officer.

Speakers, attendees at the SMC3 JumpStart 2016 conference report inventory levels high enough to slow GDP growth, depress freight demand.

Canadian Pacific Railway has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a “collective campaign” spearheaded by other major railroads to block its increasingly hostile stock-and-cash bid for Norfolk Southern Railway.

Capt. David Humphreys, founder and owner of Gulf of Mexico container line Linea Peninsular, died Jan. 13 of a stroke. He was 82.