After rates rose and plunged dramatically in 2010, shippers will see more stability this year. Increases in capacity will outpace volume, keeping rates from rising.
Paul Svindland is a managing director in the enterprise improvement group and co-leads the transportation and logistics practice of AlixPartners, a global business advisory firm.
Ocean shipping often seems like a roller coaster ride, with rates and capacity rising and falling in rapid succession. Shippers' and carriers' experiences over the last two years certainly fit that pattern, but the situation is likely to stabilize somewhat through the end of this year and into 2012.
After an abysmal 2009, containerized ocean carriers were "bullish" in 2010. Initially, they had good reason to be as demand continued strong after the Chinese New Year in mid-February and through early summer. In some trade lanes, rates rose by more than 50 percent, and the future was looking bright for ocean carriers. But then, after a weak peak season and softened demand in the fall, rate levels began to decline again, albeit not nearly as badly as in 2009. Now in 2011, rates have stabilized somewhat but are still nowhere near the level that carriers were hoping for.
Indeed, in April of this year, large importers and ocean carriers were scurrying to negotiate trans-Pacific rates in time for the industry-standard May 1 contract period. Unfortunately for the carrier community, it appears as though rate levels will be down at least 10 percent (excluding bunker fuel surcharges) in the trans-Pacific eastbound trade. Much smaller reductions are expected in the more balanced trans-Atlantic trade.
As for other important trends in ocean shipping for the remainder of 2011 and early 2012, we expect that U.S. container imports and exports will continue to grow. Most analysts agree that growth will range between 3 and 4 percent on trans-Atlantic lanes and about 8 to 9 percent on trans-Pacific lanes. As the U.S. economy continues its recovery, export growth should level off, but this will occur only if the U.S. dollar strengthens, as many economists are predicting.
Building up capacity
Although carriers are continuing to engage in slow steaming and other cost-cutting practices that will impact the supply-demand balance, most analysts still expect that growth in vessel capacity will outstrip demand. In the trans-Pacific trade, for example, "new build" capacity is expected to increase by 15 percent even though volume growth is forecast to only reach the high single digits.
Nevertheless, the top 10 ocean carriers have a combined 2.3 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of capacity on order—and this figure does not include the substantial options for additional orders that have not yet been exercised.
Why so much building right now? Carriers are taking advantage of the easing liquidity and looser credit markets as well as favorable prices for new ship construction, which allows them to resume the aggressive building programs they had largely halted during the recession.
Another factor that will encourage a capacity-demand imbalance is that carriers continue to make most of their investments in ultra-large ships that can only be deployed in the Asia- Europe trade lanes. As a result, the large vessels they replace will move to the Asia-North America (trans-Pacific) trade lanes, further increasing capacity.
Why would ocean carriers choose to deploy these ultra-large vessels if they result in capacity outweighing demand? Carriers that have the financial capabilities to procure ultra-large vessels will enjoy continued trading advantages versus their competition due to economies of scale. Maersk, for example, recently announced that it had ordered 10 18,000-TEU triple- E class vessels. These ships are projected to cut 20 percent to 30 percent of that company's transportation cost. Moves such as this could drive additional consolidation in the industry because carriers that operate very cost-efficient vessels may gain so much advantage that other carriers may no longer be able to compete.
Not enough containers
Even though there is plenty of vessel capacity available, some shippers can expect to experience shortages of another type: a lack of containers. For example, exporters shipping from inland locations may have trouble finding containers as carriers increasingly are looking to turn their equipment closer to the ports in order to cut down on costs. This means there will be less equipment for companies that export from inland points unless they commit to covering the containerpositioning costs through higher rates. We already are seeing this play out in such areas as the Ohio Valley, where exports are booming but exporters are having a tough time getting carriers to commit equipment for outbound loads without a rate premium.
Shippers should also expect some service challenges related to container pickup and delivery while the industry transforms the way container chassis are handled and managed. No longer will chassis be the responsibility of the ocean carrier; instead the burden of providing, managing, and maintaining that equipment will fall on the drayage and intermodal carriers as well as on the chassis-leasing companies. During this period of transition, carriers and terminals will look to push chassis out of expensive waterfront property. Meanwhile, there is still not a clear replacement strategy in place, nor does anyone know how the labor unions will react to losing profitable maintenance and repair work should chassis leave the terminals. All of that can lead to disruptions in the availability and flow chassis.
Longer term, this development could increase costs for leasing companies and truckers, which will now be saddled with the maintenance and repair expenses as well as labor and lease costs associated with storing chassis. Until now, much of this cost has been bundled into terminal expenses and covered by the terminals and carriers. Leasing companies and dray providers will eventually look for shippers to lift the burden of this additional cost.
All of these trends are important, but in the end, the main thing for shippers to understand is that capacity remains greater than demand, and that will continue to put downward pressure on rates. Until supply and demand become more balanced, the only "bulls" out there are likely to be the shippers.
Benefits for Amazon's customers--who include marketplace retailers and logistics services customers, as well as companies who use its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform and the e-commerce shoppers who buy goods on the website--will include generative AI (Gen AI) solutions that offer real-world value, the company said.
The launch is based on “Amazon Nova,” the company’s new generation of foundation models, the company said in a blog post. Data scientists use foundation models (FMs) to develop machine learning (ML) platforms more quickly than starting from scratch, allowing them to create artificial intelligence applications capable of performing a wide variety of general tasks, since they were trained on a broad spectrum of generalized data, Amazon says.
The new models are integrated with Amazon Bedrock, a managed service that makes FMs from AI companies and Amazon available for use through a single API. Using Amazon Bedrock, customers can experiment with and evaluate Amazon Nova models, as well as other FMs, to determine the best model for an application.
Calling the launch “the next step in our AI journey,” the company says Amazon Nova has the ability to process text, image, and video as prompts, so customers can use Amazon Nova-powered generative AI applications to understand videos, charts, and documents, or to generate videos and other multimedia content.
“Inside Amazon, we have about 1,000 Gen AI applications in motion, and we’ve had a bird’s-eye view of what application builders are still grappling with,” Rohit Prasad, SVP of Amazon Artificial General Intelligence, said in a release. “Our new Amazon Nova models are intended to help with these challenges for internal and external builders, and provide compelling intelligence and content generation while also delivering meaningful progress on latency, cost-effectiveness, customization, information grounding, and agentic capabilities.”
The new Amazon Nova models available in Amazon Bedrock include:
Amazon Nova Micro, a text-only model that delivers the lowest latency responses at very low cost.
Amazon Nova Lite, a very low-cost multimodal model that is lightning fast for processing image, video, and text inputs.
Amazon Nova Pro, a highly capable multimodal model with the best combination of accuracy, speed, and cost for a wide range of tasks.
Amazon Nova Premier, the most capable of Amazon’s multimodal models for complex reasoning tasks and for use as the best teacher for distilling custom models
Amazon Nova Canvas, a state-of-the-art image generation model.
Amazon Nova Reel, a state-of-the-art video generation model that can transform a single image input into a brief video with the prompt: dolly forward.
Economic activity in the logistics industry expanded in November, continuing a steady growth pattern that began earlier this year and signaling a return to seasonality after several years of fluctuating conditions, according to the latest Logistics Managers’ Index report (LMI), released today.
The November LMI registered 58.4, down slightly from October’s reading of 58.9, which was the highest level in two years. The LMI is a monthly gauge of business conditions across warehousing and logistics markets; a reading above 50 indicates growth and a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
“The overall index has been very consistent in the past three months, with readings of 58.6, 58.9, and 58.4,” LMI analyst Zac Rogers, associate professor of supply chain management at Colorado State University, wrote in the November LMI report. “This plateau is slightly higher than a similar plateau of consistency earlier in the year when May to August saw four readings between 55.3 and 56.4. Seasonally speaking, it is consistent that this later year run of readings would be the highest all year.”
Separately, Rogers said the end-of-year growth reflects the return to a healthy holiday peak, which started when inventory levels expanded in late summer and early fall as retailers began stocking up to meet consumer demand. Pandemic-driven shifts in consumer buying behavior, inflation, and economic uncertainty contributed to volatile peak season conditions over the past four years, with the LMI swinging from record-high growth in late 2020 and 2021 to slower growth in 2022 and contraction in 2023.
“The LMI contracted at this time a year ago, so basically [there was] no peak season,” Rogers said, citing inflation as a drag on demand. “To have a normal November … [really] for the first time in five years, justifies what we’ve seen all these companies doing—building up inventory in a sustainable, seasonal way.
“Based on what we’re seeing, a lot of supply chains called it right and were ready for healthy holiday season, so far.”
The LMI has remained in the mid to high 50s range since January—with the exception of April, when the index dipped to 52.9—signaling strong and consistent demand for warehousing and transportation services.
The LMI is a monthly survey of logistics managers from across the country. It tracks industry growth overall and across eight areas: inventory levels and costs; warehousing capacity, utilization, and prices; and transportation capacity, utilization, and prices. The report is released monthly by researchers from Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).
"After several years of mitigating inflation, disruption, supply shocks, conflicts, and uncertainty, we are currently in a relative period of calm," John Paitek, vice president, GEP, said in a release. "But it is very much the calm before the coming storm. This report provides procurement and supply chain leaders with a prescriptive guide to weathering the gale force headwinds of protectionism, tariffs, trade wars, regulatory pressures, uncertainty, and the AI revolution that we will face in 2025."
A report from the company released today offers predictions and strategies for the upcoming year, organized into six major predictions in GEP’s “Outlook 2025: Procurement & Supply Chain.”
Advanced AI agents will play a key role in demand forecasting, risk monitoring, and supply chain optimization, shifting procurement's mandate from tactical to strategic. Companies should invest in the technology now to to streamline processes and enhance decision-making.
Expanded value metrics will drive decisions, as success will be measured by resilience, sustainability, and compliance… not just cost efficiency. Companies should communicate value beyond cost savings to stakeholders, and develop new KPIs.
Increasing regulatory demands will necessitate heightened supply chain transparency and accountability. So companies should strengthen supplier audits, adopt ESG tracking tools, and integrate compliance into strategic procurement decisions.
Widening tariffs and trade restrictions will force companies to reassess total cost of ownership (TCO) metrics to include geopolitical and environmental risks, as nearshoring and friendshoring attempt to balance resilience with cost.
Rising energy costs and regulatory demands will accelerate the shift to sustainable operations, pushing companies to invest in renewable energy and redesign supply chains to align with ESG commitments.
New tariffs could drive prices higher, just as inflation has come under control and interest rates are returning to near-zero levels. That means companies must continue to secure cost savings as their primary responsibility.
Specifically, 48% of respondents identified rising tariffs and trade barriers as their top concern, followed by supply chain disruptions at 45% and geopolitical instability at 41%. Moreover, tariffs and trade barriers ranked as the priority issue regardless of company size, as respondents at companies with less than 250 employees, 251-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-50,000 and 50,000+ employees all cited it as the most significant issue they are currently facing.
“Evolving tariffs and trade policies are one of a number of complex issues requiring organizations to build more resilience into their supply chains through compliance, technology and strategic planning,” Jackson Wood, Director, Industry Strategy at Descartes, said in a release. “With the potential for the incoming U.S. administration to impose new and additional tariffs on a wide variety of goods and countries of origin, U.S. importers may need to significantly re-engineer their sourcing strategies to mitigate potentially higher costs.”
Freight transportation providers and maritime port operators are bracing for rough business impacts if the incoming Trump Administration follows through on its pledge to impose a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on China, analysts say.
Industry contacts say they fear that such heavy fees could prompt importers to “pull forward” a massive surge of goods before the new administration is seated on January 20, and then quickly cut back again once the hefty new fees are instituted, according to a report from TD Cowen.
As a measure of the potential economic impact of that uncertain scenario, transport company stocks were mostly trading down yesterday following Donald Trump’s social media post on Monday night announcing the proposed new policy, TD Cowen said in a note to investors.
But an alternative impact of the tariff jump could be that it doesn’t happen at all, but is merely a threat intended to force other nations to the table to strike new deals on trade, immigration, or drug smuggling. “Trump is perfectly comfortable being a policy paradox and pushing competing policies (and people); this ‘chaos premium’ only increases his leverage in negotiations,” the firm said.
However, if that truly is the new administration’s strategy, it could backfire by sparking a tit-for-tat trade war that includes retaliatory tariffs by other countries on U.S. exports, other analysts said. “The additional tariffs on China that the incoming US administration plans to impose will add to restrictions on China-made products, driving up their prices and fueling an already-under-way surge in efforts to beat the tariffs by importing products before the inauguration,” Andrei Quinn-Barabanov, Senior Director – Supplier Risk Management solutions at Moody’s, said in a statement. “The Mexico and Canada tariffs may be an invitation to negotiations with the U.S. on immigration and other issues. If implemented, they would also be challenging to maintain, because the two nations can threaten the U.S. with significant retaliation and because of a likely pressure from the American business community that would be greatly affected by the costs and supply chain obstacles resulting from the tariffs.”
New tariffs could also damage sensitive supply chains by triggering unintended consequences, according to a report by Matt Lekstutis, Director at Efficio, a global procurement and supply chain procurement consultancy. “While ultimate tariff policy will likely be implemented to achieve specific US re-industrialization and other political objectives, the responses of various nations, companies and trading partners is not easily predicted and companies that even have little or no exposure to Mexico, China or Canada could be impacted. New tariffs may disrupt supply chains dependent on just in time deliveries as they adjust to new trade flows. This could affect all industries dependent on distribution and logistics providers and result in supply shortages,” Lekstutis said.