Total cargo shipments on the St. Lawrence Seaway have now surpassed 2013 levels by 5 percent due to strong North American import/export activity. According to the St. Lawrence Seaway, total cargo tonnage from March 25 to September 30 reached 24.4 million metric tons.
Liquid bulk shipping requires complex planning and scheduling. For many oil, gas and chemical companies, getting the business in shape to manage incoming and outgoing shipments drives competitive edge. As prices fluctuate on a daily basis, understanding the options on large crude oil vessels and having up-to-date market information is vital when bidding on spot cargo to accurately schedule your fleet. Being able to take all unassigned ships to a legal berth, with all constraints considered, is a logistic and economic challenge. So, how can companies maximize profitability and avoid unnecessary demurrage costs?
Consolidation in the container shipping segment via alliances or mergers is likely to accelerate due to persistent overcapacity and freight rates pressure, Fitch Ratings says.
Beset by continued sluggish demand, a growing mountain of debt and a radically changing marketplace, listed companies in the global container shipping industry as a whole face a greater risk of financial distress, including possible bankruptcy, than at any time since 2010, and that risk has grown in each of those past three years. That's according to a new study from AlixPartners, the global business-advisory firm.
An alliance of the world's top three container shipping firms which could control more than a third of the market is likely to start operating in mid-2014, No.1 player Maersk Line said after the tie-up was approved by U.S. regulators.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released January performance data showing a strong rise in airfreight growth compared to a year ago. Global freight tonne kilometers (FTKs) rose 4.5 percent in January compared to January 2013. This is a significant acceleration on the 2.2 percent year-on-year growth rate recorded in December, and is well above the 1.4 percent full-year growth reported for 2013 as compared to 2012.
DHL Express said it has trained 4000 of its employees in 51 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa using an in-house Certified International Specialists learning and development program.
The success of online retailers has been linked to the demise of many high street shops in the UK, most recently HMV and Jessops. The remaining retailers have clear strategies which incorporate on-line shopping with home delivery and are often further supported by other initiatives, such as click and collect, where goods are ordered online but delivered to a third-party address, such as a local garage or convenience store, to avoid the disappointment of missed home deliveries.
Gartner's been gazing at its crystal ball again, and has forecast that service-led solutions - software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and so forth - will displace more traditional sourcing methods by 2015.
