Week 29 Freight Updates

With a 47.8% YoY increase in its throughput and a stellar performance on the books for June, the Port of New York & New Jersey is making its way up in the rankings of major U.S. gateways. According to The Loadstar, NY/NJ officially surpassed the Port of Long Beach in the number of imports it recorded last month, becoming the second-largest port in the country.

This news comes at a time when ocean liners are desperately trying to keep up, but there’s no capacity left to be found. As a result, “carriers are stepping on the gas” in an attempt to transport more cargo and capitalize on skyrocketing rates, based on new data from VesselsValue and MarineTraffic. Over in Congress, U.S. exporters are calling for increased shipping regulation to better police ocean liners’ behaviors, ranging from refusing export loads to repositioning empties.

Then, you have the growing impact of the wildfires in southern Canada on the Port of Vancouver’s productivity with dwell times starting to exceed 10 days right before the arrival of this year’s peak season. And other parts of the world are no stranger to this deterioration in on-time performance. According to the latest data available from Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis, “schedule reliability on the Asia–North Europe trade was at 23.8 percent in May compared with 86.2 percent in pre-pandemic May 2019.”

To learn more about this week’s top stories in international shipping, check out the following article highlights:

Import surge pushes port of NY/NJ above Long Beach in cargo coastal switch

New York & New Jersey has eclipsed Long Beach to become the second-biggest U.S. port, behind Los Angeles, which recorded a total of 467,763 TEU of imports during June.

Full steam ahead: Why container ships are racing across the Pacific

There are almost no container ships in the world left for liners to charter. Secondhand purchase prices are through the roof. It takes two years or more to get a newly built ship. How can liners find more capacity?

Draft of bill reveals scope of US shipping act overhaul effort (sub. required)

A fast-moving effort led by agricultural exporters and their allies in Congress to hold ocean carriers accountable for grievances arising from and predating the pandemic has yielded a sweeping draft bipartisan overhaul of U.S. shipping law.

Average container rail dwells at Vancouver rise above 10 days (sub. required)

Containers at most Port of Vancouver marine terminals are sitting more than 10 days before being loaded onto trains, and the growing dwell time is raising concerns about how long it will take to dig out of the backlog.

Port delays disrupt Europe’s crucial short-sea network (sub. required)

The European short-sea network, critical to importers, is under increasing pressure as deteriorating on-time performance of mainline vessels at major hubs extends delays and disruption through the downstream supply chain.

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