With the mounting prolonged waterfront labour conflict reaching the point where dockers plan to cease working overtime indefinitely as of today and on weekends this Saturday, the Montreal Port Authority’s newly-installed President and CEO, Martin Imbleau, issued a sharply-worded statement striking out at the potential impact on the Canadian economy and the competitiveness of Canada’s second biggest port of a vital public service being “offered on a part-time basis.”
Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) chief executive officer, John Wolfe, reported in his ‘State of the Alliance 2021’ that three new vessel services create additional links with Asia and that there is “little cause for congestion” at the NWSA member ports of Seattle and Tacoma.
The Port of Redwood City is “cautiously optimistic” about 2021 cargo volumes for imports and exports but the lack of annual ship channel dredging is allowing shoaling to worsen. The result is delays and higher costs for loading and unloading of vessels, according to Executive Director Kristine Zortman.
In response to complaints by U.S. exporters and Democratic and Republican Congressional representatives, the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) announced that it was ordering 10 ocean carriers and 17 marine terminals to report on demurrage and detention practices and penalties assessed on shippers as well as the availability of empty containers for U.S. exporters to ship their goods.
On March 9th, a group of Democratic and Republican Congressional representatives led by John Garamendi (D-CA) and Jim Costa (R-CA) announced that they authored a bipartisan letter to Michael A. Khouri, chair of the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), voicing concern over reports that certain vessel-operating common carriers (VOCCs) are declining to ship U.S. agricultural commodity exports from U.S. ports.
Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) CEO John Wolfe reported March 3rd that container freight volumes rose by 9% in January 2021 compared to January 2020 totaling 288,289 TEUs. NWSA CEO John Wolfe expects strong first half of 2021.
The decision by French ocean carrier CMA CGM to make the Port of Oakland its first port of call in a new service from Asia is a reflection of importers and exporters developing new markets closer to their customers: “First-call status demonstrates the market is viewing the Port of Oakland more strategically which will attract increased cargo volumes,” says GSC Logistics Harbor Trucking President Dave Arsenault.