Supply Chain Shipping Hell: ‘Just Get Me a Box’ Says Logistics Manager

Two years ago, the cost for a 40-foot container to transport goods from Asia to the U.S was under $2,000. Today it’s as much as $25,000.

MISH

When I saw this Bloomberg headline I thought it was about cardboard boxes. Instead, ‘Just Get Me a Box‘ is about shipping containers. 

It’s mid-August, and logistics manager RoxAnne Thomas’s phone won’t stop pinging. Her faucets, sinks, and toilets are waylaid near Shanghai, snagged in Vancouver, and buried under a pile of shipping containers in a rail yard outside Chicago. 

“Every step of the process, there’s still backlog,” said Thomas, 41, in one of several interviews from late July through August. “The beginning of the supply chain in China—I don’t think that’s going to get better for a year.” And the outlook more broadly? “A year and a half before things are truly back to normal.”

Although the pandemic has shuttered factories and shaken supplies of raw materials, Thomas’s chief challenge is freight, and it starts with what used to be cheap, plentiful commodities: shipping containers.

Two years ago, a 40-foot container cost less than $2,000 to transport goods from Asia to the U.S. Today the service fetches as much as $25,000 if an importer pays a premium for on-time delivery, which is a luxury. 

“The fear is we’re ordering all this stuff for demand, and the demand is going to fizzle out before the product gets here,” Thomas says. With summer winding down, the big test of the global trading system’s resilience might still be ahead.

Commodity Shipping Rates Post Biggest Daily Gain in a Decade

Bloomberg also reports Commodity Shipping Rates Post Biggest Daily Gain in a Decade

Average rates for giant Capesize bulk carriers — which can carry products like coal, iron ore and grains — jumped by $6,700 a day on Monday, the most since 2010, as owners continue to benefit from strong demand for raw materials. The rally extended Tuesday, pushing the daily rate to almost $53,700, the highest level in 11 years, Baltic Exchange data show.

Parabolic Rise in Shipping Rates

Also consider this September 16 report: Ship Owner Genco Says Commodity Freight Rates Set to Spike.

Spot rates for container ships to move manufactured products have surged for 20 straight weeks and now stand 731% above their seasonal average over the prior five years, according to Drewry Shipping. John Wobensmith, the president and chief executive officer of Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd., said that prices to move commodities — which have already rallied sharply this year — may follow a similar cycle in the coming years with not enough ships being built to meet demand.

“You do get to a point, and you’ve seen this in containers, where you hit a certain utilization rate and you start to go parabolic on rates,” he said in an interview. “I think we’re getting close to that period.”…...more here

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