BNSF Railway recently announced plans to build Barstow International Gateway (BIG), which could transform the Southern California intermodal picture. The $1.5 billion BIG project will be a 4,100-acre facility that includes a rail yard, intermodal terminal, and transload warehouses. It will be located 130 freeway miles away from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, in the city of Barstow, California.

Several ocean carriers are cutting some of their trans-Pacific services in response to a drop in demand and falling ocean spot rates. Mediterranean Shipping Co., Maersk, and CMA CGM are cutting one post-Panamax service and two Panamax services. Some smaller lines are also pulling trans-Pacific services.

There’s a backlog of marine containers at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert. CN is helping to relieve this backlog by moving containers to their auxiliary storage yards in eastern Canada.

Air Canada Cargo launched a new service out of St. John’s international airport (YYT) which started Oct 1, 2022. Canada’s largest air cargo provider will operate its Boeing 767 freights five times a week with two non-stop flights to Frankfurt and three non-stop flights to Madrid. This is Canada’s only carrier to have a scheduled cargo service connecting St. John’s to Europe and will provide a boost to Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy.

Shippers are finally experiencing some price relief from trucking costs. The US producer price indexes (PPIs) show that less-than-truckload (LTL) rates dropped 4.7% in August and truckload (TL) rates dropped 1.5%. Even with consecutive monthly decreases, LTL and TL rates are still up by 14.1% and 22% respectively from 2021. Industry experts say that the PPIs point to a market correction in LTL and TL rates, rather than a collapse.

Chinese authorities closed the northeastern ports of Qingdao and Dalian last Thursday, ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Muifa. This followed the one-day closure of the ports of Shanghai and Ninbo last Wednesday, which were also impacted by the typhoon.

Central American and Caribbean ports are facing tight vessel capacity, schedule disruptions, and labour shortages due to COVID-19. Some shippers are facing up to four weeks of delays, as they wait for their cargo to be moved from one vessel to another while in transit to its final destination.  

Production of grain in Canada has a strong outlook for 2022, especially after a severe drought devastated last year’s harvest. Canola is Canada’s second biggest winter crop, and this season’s production is expected to be 46% higher than last year’s harvest.

A potential strike was averted last week as a last-minute deal was reached between U.S. railroads and 60,000 rail employees. The Biden administration helped to broker a tentative deal after 20 hours of intense talks, preventing a work stoppage that would have been a major hit to the U.S. economy already struggling with high inflation, a labour shortage, and supply-chain disruptions. The new contracts give rail employees a 24 percent wage increase between 2020 to 2024.

Sluggish global demand, market uncertainy from the Ukraine war, and Covid controls are creating challenges for China’s factories. As China’s economy struggles to recover, many factories in China’s manufacturing hub of Dongguan are scaling down or closing. In August, China’s exports to the United States fell for the first time in two years and manufacturers cut jobs for the fifth straight month, leaving many migrant workers unemployed.

The price of goods manufacturing in Canada has declined for three straight months, according to the Conference Board of Canada. The main reason is because both global shipping costs and delivery times declined in that time, meaning that long-lasting supply chain challenges through COVID-19 are finally starting to dissipate.

Halifax Stanfield Air Cargo Logistics Park (ACLP) has officially opened, making it Atlantic Canada’s largest air cargo processing facility. The $36 million project was funded by the Government of Canada’s National Trade Corridors Fund ($18 million), the Halifax International Airport Authority ($13 million), and the Government of Nova Scotia ($5 million).

According to IATA World Air Transport Statistics (WATS), overall global air cargo volume increased by 18.7% in 2021, after a decline of 10.6% in 2020 and an increase of 6.9% in the pre-Covid year of 2019.

Inland rail congestion in the United States is impacting the number of import containers moved by rail from Los Angeles-Long Beach. In 2019, 67.9% of imports to LA-LB were moved by rail. Between January to April this year, the number has dropped to 40.8%.

The merger between Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) is one step closer to completion, as it recently received clearance from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment. The deal isn’t done yet, as it still requires approval from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which expects to complete its review in early 2023. Mexican regulators have already given their approval.

Weeks of inland congestion and rail car shortages, especially in Toronto and Montreal, is causing some shipping lines to make changes to their scheduled calls at the Port of Vancouver. The second largest shipping line in the world is sending some vessels to alternate US ports to temporarily discharge Vancouver rail cargo.  We anticipate that there will be some delays for import cargo coming into Canada.

Hapag-Lloyd recently launched a new weekly service that calls Hamburg, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium, before reaching Port Saint John in New Brunswick. From Port Saint John, containers can be transported via CP Rail to Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver in Canada, and Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis in the U.S.

Flight cancellations and disruptions in Europe have dominated the news, causing havoc not only for travelers, but also for shippers of air cargo. The issue is that airlines, airports, and ground-handling companies have chronic staff shortages, which has been caused by rising COVID-19 infections, a swell of travelers during the summer holidays, and higher cargo volumes after Shanghai and Hong Kong’s restrictions have lifted.

As part of #EVWeek in Canada, the Minister of Transport announced a four-year $550 million program to help businesses switch to zero-emission vehicles. The government’s goal is to “help reduce pollution, create more well-paying jobs, and build a cleaner world for generations to come.”

Of the estimated 125 container ships waiting off North American ports in early July, 64% were waiting off East and Gulf coasts, with only 36% off the West coast. That represents an estimated $40 billion in cargo, waiting an average of 8-10 days to dock on the West coast, and 11-13 days to dock on the East and Gulf coasts.