Category: Supply Chain

With increasing amounts of ocean freight capacity soaked up by COGH (Cape of Good Hope) diversions and port congestion, spot rates are spiking, with indexes up significantly on 2023 and market led spot/FAK rates up by nearly 500%. Now, carriers desperate for ships and more capacity are setting n... Read more

At 22:09 on Wednesday 19th June a GB railway locomotive and loaded wagons en-route to the Port of Felixstowe derailed on the branch line approaching the main Central and Northern railheads, causing significant damage to the track and closing both terminals to train movements. The Central and N... Read more

The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) final rule on demurrage and detention billing requirements came into force on the 28th May, except for two provisions that are delayed. The rule applies to ocean common carriers trading to or from the US, including vessel-operating common carriers (VOCCs) ... Read more

Shipping lines are imposing surcharges and raising freight rates as capacity from India to Europe, North America and The Rest of The World tightens. Indicative of why this is, can be seen with exports to the US up 13% and significant ocean network changes expected on the India-North America trade... Read more

Turkey, Qatar, and the UAE are joining with Iraq to develop a new land corridor - Development Road Project - which will connect the Gulf to Europe. The Development Road Project is a multi-billion dollar land corridor that will stretch 750 miles from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, e... Read more

The Asia export trades are now as challenging as it was during the pandemic, with extremely tight vessel space, equipment shortages and port congestion colliding leading to a surge in spot rates, with analysts speculating it could reach USD 20,000/FEU on the Asia-Europe trade before too long. ... Read more

Significant and sustained terminal congestion in major Mediterranean and Asian ports is soaking up available capacity, which directly impacts freight rates and results in substantial delays to vessel schedules, with reliability dropping and the likelihood that delays will persist through the summ... Read more

The Red Sea crisis and the much longer sailing distances triggered by the diversion around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope (COGH) soaked up existing market overcapacity, which was just enough to cope with the extended COGH transit times, provided there were no additional disruptions to maritime supp... Read more

Container shipping lines have announced significant rate hikes on all ex-Asia trade lanes, due to increased demand and increasing equipment challenges in more origins and it would be prudent to expect more of the same. Effective capacity to North Europe has decreased by 5% compared to a year a... Read more

The surge in Asia to Europe ocean freight (see ‘Ex-Asia spot rate spiral turned into shooting star’) is also boosting demand for airfreight to Europe and even to North and South America. Uncertainty and delays with ocean shipments have been encouraging more shippers to transfer to airfreig... Read more

The mass diversion of container ships away from the Red Sea since December has raised fears of congestion across west Mediterranean container ports, as carriers from Asia drop boxes destined for the eastern Mediterranean. Instead of entering the Mediterranean Sea dead end, created by the effec... Read more

Delayed five times by the UK government, post-Brexit physical border checks of animal products, plants and plant products through the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel were finally implemented on the 30th April 2024. However, importers of affected products express concern about additional costs. Th... Read more