Tag Archives: trends

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China cargo collapse

This interesting article shows how CargoMetrics is using data on ship lading, IoT readings, and vessel tracking to determine the amount of trade to and from China right now. the Coronavirus problem in China has essentially caused ocean commerce to and from China to plummet since Chinese New Year (CNY).

Bulk shipments such as iron ore and coal have dropped over 40% according to the article. Container shipments out of China have also dropped, probably due to the disruption of work schedules at Chinese manufacturers.  There are also issues involving quarantine of ships and cargos due to the virus.  The article is especially good when it uses graphs to show the changes.

Of course, this is a great promotion for Cargometrics’ capabilities.  I think one would have to look closer to discover how well Cargometrics’s data truly represents the entire range of activity, but the trends shown are certainly marked.

One very interesting fact the article gives is that petroleum imports have not dropped yet; they are up by a considerable amount. This may be due, so they say, to the longer transit times. The ships may have to lie to near Chinese ports when they cannot unload due to the quarantines or port handling issues.  The other shoe may yet fall even in the tanker business.

 

American Shipper 2020-02-22 074814     Greg Miller, Senior Editor   Thursday, February 20, 2020  via CargoMetrics data reveals depth of China cargo collapse – FreightWaves

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Posted on February 22, 2020 by in Logistics, Ports, Shipping, Supply Chains

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Rail volume down for 9th straight month in November | Supply Chain Dive

There’s a great graphic in this article showing the container and carload bookings on rail by month over the last year.

AAR carloads 2019-12-16 084643

I also was interested by the statement that ag and bulk products, which often go in hopper cars, are down considerably.  The data come from the AAR (American Association of Railroads), an industry group that provides many statistics about railroad operations.

 

Supplychain dive2019-12-16 084345

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via Rail volume down for 9th straight month in November | Supply Chain Dive

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Posted on December 16, 2019 by in Rail, Supply Chains

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BIMCO launches new cybersecurity clause

BIMCO is one of the leading standardization forces in the world of shipping. Here is an example related to cybersecurity.

How do you write a contract that binds participants to provide an appropriate level of cybersecurity?  As the article makes clear, cybersecurity has been an issue in several recent shipping incidents.  Cyber attack is very real, and shipboard systems are great targets; they have low-speed interfaces to the network, there are relatively few kinds of content transmitted, and they operate in international waters where there is no specific enforcement.  And cybersecurity can be expensive, though it is low-cost compared to the damage that could result from just one incident.

Standards are needed.  BIMCO springs to the task.  The drafting team consisted of a law firm, shipowners, P&I clubs, and Klaveness, a maritime investment firm.  There’s a two-fold notification process; immediate notification of an incident, and then a detailed notification once an incident has been investigated.

The parties are required to share the information throughout. This last point is important, because cyber events often require joint resolutions for mitigation and future prevention.

The contract element also requires any third parties employed by the participants to have adequate cybersecurity, and makes the primary firms responsible for seeing to it.

Now we will have to see whether the clause catches on in the contracts we see written.  There is always a risk with a top-down driven standard; it may miss the issues the market needs to address.

Research has shown (albeit in other contexts, such as health care) that top-down standard initiation often does not produce the penetration of results that flexible evolution of a standard does.  However, someone has to start the ball rolling, and here we have a credible effort.

Let’s now see more innovation in this area of contracting, and let’s see the results in the open, so the best combination of terms emerges and gets global acceptance.

screenshot-Digital Ship 2019-05-24  via BIMCO launches new cybersecurity clause – Digital Ship – The world leader in maritime IT news

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Posted on May 24, 2019 by in Logistics, Shipping, Strategy, Supply Chains, Sustainability

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