There are changing winds in the liner shipping industry. Or should we call it a perfect storm of low oil prices, low charter rates and falling demand in times when the market is trying to absorb an increasing number of ultra large container ship?
In an article yesterday in The Maritime Executive, an article was offered talking about progress on the Senate side to fund $6B for improvements to the navigable waterways in the US and also in the bill $1.3B for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. This still needs to move through the House, but good progress. Some [...]
This large scale seaport project in Morocco represents the sort of joined-up strategy that will help shape how logistics and production will intersect in some highly strategic locations. There's a bit of obvious similarity with Panama but there are other more established settings with some similar opportunity. We'll be talking more about this in the coming months,
As automakers add advanced driver-assist systems to conventional passenger vehicles, they are developing one path to the fully autonomous vehicle—but not the only one. So, the inevitable question: When will fully self-driving cars arrive and what will they be like? Google, with years of experience in this area, has predicted as early as 2020. Work underway was described by the project's CEO, John Krafcik, who spoke at the recent J.D. Power/NADA/NY Auto Show forum.
In 2012 Airbus announced that they would build a final assembly facility in Mobile, AL, assembling the A319, A-320, and A-321 aircraft. Over the last three years, the Company has built the systems and assets to fully produce an airplane in North America, and that's a pretty significant milestone for Airbus but also for the aerospace industry.
Some quite striking supply chain trends in several key tech sectors are beginning to make significant impacts globally, and in particular on established logistics patterns in North America and Europe. In industries like pharma research and production, clinical trials management and in the wider automotive sector - especially in the space of next-gen propulsion systems, autonomy and lightweighting, there are some dramatic evolutions taking place which will have great consequences to existing logistics patterns, specifically to carriers, airports and to established cluster regions. Given this dynamic situation, we see that well-positioned transport assets have a window of opportunity to take advantage of these trends for both revenue growth and asset monetization.
The US DoT has now released its public request for letters of interest for TIFIA supported projects. Generally, TIFIA can support the finance of a wide range of transport infrastructure projects including highway, transit, passenger rail, certain freight facilities, certain port projects, and rural infrastructure
Article about diminishing returns from ever larger vessels. A missing element of the conversation tends to be the needs of shippers.
The French ocean carrier will deploy the mammoth 18,000-TEU CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin and five sister ships in the transpacific trade between Asia and the United States West Coast starting in May.
Fully empowering local creativity, or funding an uncoordinated muddle of disconnected projects that actually don't add up to a strategic investment and infrastructure plan? Well, the US Government is now really putting significant tax funding behind freight project funding. At GLDPartners, we're not sure that we are necessarily spending toward a comprehensive and coordinated national business strategy, but at least we are allowing state and local officials to use their own project inventiveness. From our corporate and sector intelligence work, we see special market opportunity at and around airports and seaports. Let's hope that we see projects that are able to solve cargo movement problems and create economic growth.