The Jones (Maritime) Act of 1920 applies only to ships carrying commercial cargo from one place in the U.S. to another. It forces shipments between US ports to be on US-built and registered ships with US crews. For example, it does not affect a non-US ship carrying the load from Mexico to Puerto Rico. Likewise, […]
Why is diesel so expensive in California? $6.08 in CA vs $4.84 in the rest of the US. California has additional costs: These are serious additional costs. View this post on my LinkedIn […]
Truck rates are down, ocean carriers are charging less (See graph) and package volume is down. Does this mean we are returning to a more normal time? My answer is “no.” There are a number of new and not-so-nice headwinds or factors, affecting supply chain: […]
While 2 unions are threatening a walkout this week, if there isn’t a stoppage, there will be more humping. Even if there is a stoppage, when they come back to work, there will be more humping. Before your mind goes in the wrong direction, humping is a way of sorting rail cars onto trains that […]
Good News (Price will go down): Today: Crude oil prices are way down + refiners’ margins are down by ~50% Future: High prices ~$100/barrel for oil and $9+ for gas mean that economically recoverable reserves rise. e.g. Eagle Ford sees a fifteen-fold increase from 0.5 billion barrels to 8.4 billion barrels Bad news: Refineries that […]
The Cass freight index appears to show expenditures and Shipments tracking fairly closely. The same is not true for bulk ocean freight. The London-based Baltic Exchange index is a weighted average based on 11-20 international ship routes and three commodities – coal, iron ore, and grain that measures the spot market for ocean shipping. Capesize […]
American Transportation Research reports trucking operating costs = $1.855 per mile, a 12.7% year-over-year increase only slightly offset by a 14.8% decrease in deadhead mileage Trucking companies hired about 73,000 new workers in the 12 months ended in July. In a time of shortage, how did they do that? Econ 101 says — “simply […]
Many smaller suppliers agreed to have Walmart handle their freight (to Walmart DCs and stores, of course). What I hear is that Walmart is not a totally reliable provider of transportation and some gripe that they are paying fines for this unreliable performance. Now, the plot thickens. New charges include: A collect pickup fee […]
The EIA (Energy Information Administration), which is responsible for publishing the weekly diesel fuel costs, has failed in this simple duty for June 20, June 27, and July 4. “Unfortunately, we will not be able to publish those figures by the next scheduled release date of July 5.” This is hard on both shippers and carriers alike. […]