General

Thursday, 31 August 2017 09:40 |

Hurricane Harvey

First of all, we feel really sorry for all our friends, customers and their families who have been facing this unprecedented and catastrophic flooding.

After a 4-day period, over 10,000 people were rescued across Texas, 30,000 were displaced and over 20 deaths.

Many locations in the Houston metro area observed at least 30 in of precipitation with a maximum of 50 in which makes Harvey the wettest tropical cyclone on record for Texas and the contiguous United States. Heavy rainfall extended eastward into Louisiana with records up to 15 in.

Preliminary estimates of economic losses range between $40 to $50 billion (the Houston area controls 4% of the spending power in USA).

Seaports in Houston and Corpus Christi have been closed to most ships since Friday August 25th and the freight traffic is promised to disrupt for days (weeks) with no idea when freight companies will resume operations.

It will quickly impact the nation's transportation network, affecting retailers and manufacturers far from Texas. Other cities could see a shortage of trucks with increasing rates. Railroad backlogs will also take weeks to be cleaned as some services are suspended especially bound for Houston and surrounding areas.

On a daily basis, 40 to 50 vessels are in and out from Houston port. Numerous ships (oil tankers, container carriers, cruise ships …) are anchored in the Gulf of Mexico. Carriers could also wait offshore because flooded roads will keep dockworkers or trucks from carrying cargo out.

Read more :

Monday, 21 August 2017 17:14 |

BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU 2017

Thursday, 17 August 2017 09:59 |

WEST COAST : Extension of the longshore contract

Good news as the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have just extended the expiration of the current longshore contract by three years, so it now expires in July 1, 2022.

It covers 29 ports of the West Coast.

Regarding the East Coast & Gulf, the contract with the International Longshoremen’s association (ILA) expires on September 2018 and talks have begun to extend that date as well. Time will tell.

http://www.pmanet.org/news-info

More Articles...

Transportation insurance

Shipping containers through oceans has been a success over the decades. It’s so efficient that we forget the natural environment can be really tough and damageable. Fortunately incidents occur very rarely but when it occurs it can be severe like the MSC ZOE vessel in North Europe or the HAPAG-LLOYD YANTIAN EXPRESS on route to Canada. Despite they are very large container ship, till the water or weather conditions can be severe as you can read in the here joined article.

We keep on inviting you to cover your shipments with a transportation insurance. TRANSO’s one is particularly fitted for wine shipments from door to door (not only seaborne). We highly recommend you to confirm its use for each and every container you place with TRANSO.

Anyhow, we thank you for 2018 support, wishing you the best for 2019, at least a safe year.

Read more:

The container lines recent history

The shipping industry has been moving on with further concentration as here below reminded.

However, 2018 has recorded even lower scores in terms of schedule reliablity. Not only vessels are getting later but when they are late, the delay is further than the years before. With very slim global profit (when positive) carriers are reluctant to increase vessel speed for schedules recovering. Other reasons come from more and more port congestions at loading/discharge and the truck driver’s shortages in USA and also at countries of origin. Improvments would be expected and welcome but the recent performances do not support positive changes.

More than ever you can rely on TRANSO team and services to assist you for monitoring as accurately as possible the supply chain of your wine imports.

2014: Hapag-Lloyd integrated with CSAV

2015: Cosco merged with China Shipping

2016: CMA-CGM acquired APL

2017: Hapag-Lloyd integrated UASC

2017: Maersk acquired Hamburg Süd

2018: Cosco acquires OOCL

2018: ONE as a merge of K Line, MOL & NYK

Change in MED services

Both Ocean Alliance and THE Alliance services from MED to US East are merging into one single service as from early December.

The 2 existing services are deploying 4500 TEU vessels. The new one will deploy 8500 TEU vessels. The total capacity is slightly lower.

However in case of delays or blank sailings, alternative are very limited ; for instance, from FOS, there is no direct sailing alternative (only via Algeciras with Maersk or Valencia with MSC).

Carriers are announcing this is to recover from low freight rates and improve the service reliability as we have all noted less accuracy and more lead times in worldwide shipments.

Read more: