Because the spread and effects of the COVID 19 – the Coronavirus that is making its presence known worldwide – are such fluid topics, OnionBusiness.com is working to keep pace with the news and provide our readers with industry information.
This week we received an advisory from Sealand/Maersk about a rate increase for cargo moving from south to north in South America and on northward. Because of this advisory, we contacted Cain Adams at Trinity Logistics/Longboard Logistics in Meridian, ID. Cain keeps his finger on the pulse of logistics and gave us some interesting information.
The Sealand/Maersk email came on March 9 and said the company “will be implementing a General Rate Increase for all DRY & REEFER [emphasis from Sealand/Maersk] cargo from East Coast South America to North Coast South America, Central America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, United States and Canada effective April 10, 2020 in the following amount: US$ 200 per container.”
Cain told us, “Market conditions are pushing rates up per container. Fourteen-day quarantines sure are not helping. Also, some ships needed to burn a more expensive fuel. That, too, would increase the costs.”
He provided us with links to related articles, adding, “Scrubbers were to be put in place on the ships. A scrubber goes on the exhaust which ‘scrubs the exhaust and releases a cleaner byproduct.’”
One link is to DGL Global Forwarding Freight, https://www.logistics.dhl/content/dam/dhl/global/dhl-global-forwarding/documents/pdf/glo-dgf-ocean-market-update.pdf, with the content titled “Topic of the Month Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19).”
