Newsletter – January 14, 2019

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Extreme Congestion at Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports and Increasing Demurrage Charges

morethanshipping.com
As a result of this unusual period of extreme congestion, thousands of dollars in demurrage and detention charges are being assessed and charged to shippers, bringing overall costs even higher. Read more here.

Maersk pilots physical container inspections

lloydsloadinglist.com
Maersk has recently begun physically inspecting containers in four US ports as part of a pilot program to ensure correct cargo descriptions and storage, the company announced Thursday.  Read more here.

Ocean market set to tighten due to lowered capacity expectations

lloydsloadinglist.com
Leading container shipping analyst has Drewry “greatly reduced” its expectations of new orders for ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs) as a result of an apparent change of focus among some of the major carriers towards broadening and deepening their involvement in the wider container logistics market, trends it believes will aide the overall container shipping supply-demand balance. Read more here.

Number of containership fires is ‘shocking’

americanshipper.com
The fires onboard the Hapag-Lloyd ship Yantian Express off the coast of Nova Scotia and the car carrier Serenity Ace in the North Pacific are highlighting what have become frighteningly commonplace occurrences.  Read more here.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Work resumes at factories, sporadic unrest reported

thedailystar.net
The magnitude of unrest in Bangladesh’s garments industry came down today after yesterday’s revision of wages and threats of factory closure.  Read more here.