Cargo Congestion: An Update

Cargo Congestion: An Update

For the past two years, West Coast cargo congestion has dominated headlines as dozens of vessels at anchor wait to come into seaports and stacks of containers linger at terminals, exposing an already fragile supply chain. The congestion problem -- which stemmed from the pandemic-driven cargo volumes that shattered records last year -- caught the attention of the federal government, which announced it is prioritizing strengthening the supply chain with billions of dollars of investment in port and waterway infrastructure. While consumer demand has slowed a bit from last year’s record pace of goods flowing into U.S. ports, it nonetheless…
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Cargo Congestion: Expert Forecasts

Cargo Congestion: Expert Forecasts

As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are expected to eventually shift more of their spending from goods to services, but ongoing gridlock at seaports and recent efforts to decarbonize container vessels may continue to affect ocean freight rates in the trans-Pacific. So said experts at a Feb. 28 panel at the Journal of Commerce’s TPM22 Conference in Long Beach, Calif. The panel of experts - which included Rahul Kapoor, vice president and head of commodity research, maritime and trade at IHS Markit, and Thorsten Meincke, a board member for logistics company DB Schenker, spoke about the container…
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