US GULF PORTS AIM TO SUSTAIN VOLUME GAINS AFTER BANNER 2022
Houston and Mobile are both in the middle of major expansion projects, including dredging to allow bigger ships to call, but those projects will not complete until 2025 at the earliest.
CHARLESTON GROWTH DRIVES PRIVATE EQUITY ACQUISITION OF DRAYAGE CARRIER
Population and economic growth in the US Southeast and the impact on growth at the Port of Charleston has prompted a private equity firm to buy a regional drayage and warehousing firm.
LABOR DISRUPTIONS AT WORLD’S PORTS QUADRUPLED IN 2022 AS DISCONTENT GROWS
Labor unrest took an unusually heavy toll on ports around the world last year, and the outlook for continued economic instability could bring even more upheaval to global supply chains in 2023.
There were at least 38 instances of protests or strikes affecting port operations last year, more than four times as many as in 2021 when the pandemic upended global trade, according to Crisis24, a maritime security consultancy. There were nine incidents in 2020, according to data beginning in July. Crisis24 changed its tracking system at that time, and comparisons with previous years are unavailable.
U.S. CONTAINER IMPORTS CONTINUE RETURN TO PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS
U.S. container imports in December reveal an alignment with pre-pandemic levels, with U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports seeing the greatest reduction while West Coast ports started to regain market share, according to Descartes Systems Group’s (Nasdaq: DSGX) latest global shipping report. he reports shows that U.S.container import volumes in December declined slightly from November, down 1.3% moth over month to 1.9 million TEUs. The year over year reduction, however, is much starker, with December 2022 volumes coming in 19.3% below December 2021. Interestingly, the 1.9 million TEUs imported last month is only 1.3% higher than December 2019, showing an alignment with pre-pandemic levels. Looking ahead, key economic indicators continue to paint a conflicting picture about their impact on future import volumes and combined with COVID, the Russia/Ukraine conflict and the West Coast labour situation, continue to point to further disruptions and challenging global supply chain performance in 2023, according to Descartes.
SLOWING US GROWTH EXPECTED TO INCREASE TRANS-ATLANTIC BLANKS
As port Congestion eases on the US East Coast and in North Europe, capacity freed from the bottlenecks will add to the fast – growing vessel supply at a time when economic weakness is dragging down demand, with rates certain to follow
FALLING IMPORTS MUTE CAPACITY IMPACT OF CALIFORNIA’S NEW CLEAN – FLEET DRAYAGE RULE
Although truckers at California ports comply with a new clean – fleet rule and enforcement of the AB5 worker classification law, declining cargo volumes should prevent a drayage capacity shortage.
