TSA Executive Administrator Brian Conrad predicted that container equipment could be in short supply in the summer, placing constraints on capacity across carrier networks.
“We expect overall 2011 load factors to remain quite strong,” said Conrad. “Even if there prove to be dips in utilisation levels during certain periods, the experience of early 2010 is still relatively fresh in carriers’ minds.
“Each carrier faces clearly defined costs in shoreside labour, equipment, inland transportation, debt service, documentation and so on. Knowing those costs, managing them effectively and keeping rates at compensatory levels will be critical to any carrier’s long-term competitive position in this trade.”
“However, researchers suggest that 6 million new boxes are needed, and that’s equivalent to about two years of production.
“Hence, in spite of carriers now placing orders for new containers, there is very little hope that the current shortage is going to get better.”
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In a recent survey by analyst Transport Intelligence (TI), 64% of respondents said the main driver for collaboration was cost reduction, while 25% cited efficiency and just 8.7% said having a greener operation was the main factor.
Speaking at the Shippers’ Voice seminars at this week’s Multimodal exhibition, TI CEO John Manners-Bell said companies that collaborated in order to reduce empty running did so to reduce cost, and any environmental benefit was simply a by-product.
]]>The peak season chaos experienced in the second half of 2009 indicates how inadequate communication between shippers, forwarders and carriers can sometimes lead to a severe mis-match between demand and capacity.
Senior forwarding and logistics executives acknowledge that things broke down last year, and have been trying to identify how to ensure the experience is not repeated.
Diederick de Vroet, Kuehne + Nagel’s senior VP of sea freight for north-west Europe, says: “One of the issues that will be further emphasised this year in the relationship between carriers, forwarders and customers is forecasting.
]]>US private equity fund Apollo Management and Paris-based Butler Capital Partners have both asked for information about the financial situation of the beleaguered shipping group, according to the Bloomberg news agency. Bloomberg said that the information had come from sources close to the current confidential talks between CMA CGM and its banks over the restructuring of the shipping group’s $5.6bn debt.
The two funds may have been in the mind of Mr Saadé when he told French business magazine Expansion last week that the group was looking for funds ready to invest $300m-$400m over a period of five to seven years.
]]>MD of The Shippers’ Voice Andrew Trail said that shipping lines were facing problems because vessel owners had purchased too many ships in the past.
He said: “It wasn’t that long ago that such people were making obscene amounts of money! It was the prospect of huge returns on investment that fed the frenzy of new ship orders, not a careful consideration of what the market needed."
]]>The paper lays out a clear set of options for a viable system that could be applied to all vessels of all flags and monitored through the International Maritime Organization.
Its supporters argue that a global emissions trading system for shipping would force operators to pay more attention to efficient voyage-planning and management of their fleets, as well as investment in modern tonnage, because lower emissions would be financially rewarded.
It would also promote change by supporting innovation and technological development.