In the last blog we talked about the very likely scenario that, with the master contract for the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) expiring in less than a year, contract [...]
The Port of Ningbo – the third busiest container port in the world – was supposedly going to start a phased reopening yesterday (Wednesday, August 18th) after its Meidong Container Terminal [also [...]
Chinese authorities shut down a terminal at the third busiest container port in the world after a single positive COVID test. Yesterday, Eric Kulisch reported in American Shipper: Chinese [...]
While shippers have been complaining and accusing ocean freight carriers of profiteering and unfair practices since the pandemic hit (and for years before that as well), there have not been major [...]
It’s a classic case of good news, bad news. After Tuesday’s bad news blog about Yantian Port’s partial shutdown lingering and creating a “worse-than-Suez” level of [...]
The Journal of Commerce (JOC) published a very interesting article by Larry Gross. Gross is president and founder of Gross Transportation Consulting and a JOC analyst. Despite the dramatic growth [...]
In the midst of an early peak season and port congestion, carriers suspend containership calls to the Port of Oakland, according to Bill Mongelluzzo's reporting in the Journal of Commerce [...]
One of the factors adding to port congestion is backups with getting shipping containers onto trains. Railroads point to inland supply chain constraints, such as shortages of chassis at inland [...]
As ports are congested on both coasts of the U.S., there's a fully capable terminal at the Port of Charleston where carriers are not sending their ships. Rather than call at this terminal, [...]
The way ocean freight rates have skyrocketed in 2020 and into 2021, it became expected that the big U.S. shippers – the beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) of the world like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, [...]
Some shippers are looking at Gulf Coast ports like the Port of Houston as possible alternatives to the severely congested ports along the East and West Coasts. Port congestion like we're seeing [...]
It’s early to talk about the 2021 peak season for the international shipping industry; however, with severe congestion at U.S. ports expected to last at least into the summer, 2021’s [...]
International shipping in 2021 continues right where 2020 left off. That sentence sounds obvious, but what it means is an abnormal start to the year when it comes to ocean freight shipping, and [...]
In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the incredible opportunity presented to furniture importers and sellers by spiking demand that is predicted to stay strong over the next few years. In Part [...]
U.S. agricultural exporters are getting screwed. All the international shipping attention in the U.S. seems focused on importing rather than exporting. International shipping news sources, when [...]
This blog will get into what's happening with freight rates, cargo volume behavior, and implications those have for shippers through the rest of the year and into 2021. But first – and I promise [...]
In March of 2015, I wrote a Universal Cargo blog post about how the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) should pay damages for what the union did at the Port of Portland. Today's [...]
This is a guest post by Dave Gilbert. The United States imported over $3 trillion worth of goods in 2018 alone. Hundreds of thousands of businesses depend on foreign suppliers and producers [...]
Despite the fact their Master Contract permits port automation by terminal operators, the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) is fighting hard against APM Terminals' plan to automate [...]
A's Want to Build a Ballpark in the Port of Oakland
The Oakland Athletics, lovingly known by their fans as the A's, don't want to play baseball at the Oakland Coliseum anymore. Their [...]