Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

Leading global port agency provider Inchape Shipping services is moving into the US freight forwarding sector after receiving its Ocean Transportation Intermediary (OTI) license from the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC). The FMC license means Inchcape can operate in the US as an NVOCC [non-vessel operating common carrier], allowing it to issue its own House Bills of Lading, consolidate shipments, and negotiate directly with ocean carriers to secure space and rates for shippers. “Becoming an FMC-licensed NVOCC is a major milestone for Inchcape Shipping Services and for the customers we serve,” said Irem Gokmen, regional CEO Americas of Inchcape Shipping Services. “This license reflects our commitment to operating at the highest standards of compliance, transparency, and service. “With our NVOCC offering, we can give shippers more control, more flexibility, and more competitive options for moving cargo to and from the United States,” she added. In the initial phase, Inchape will offer both full- and less-than-container load shipments to shippers as well as other forwarders. Securing the OTI license, which is mandatory to issue Bills of Lading, involves a process that requires applicants to demonstrate financial responsibility, regulatory knowledge, and operational readiness. “Our customers expect a partner they can rely on, especially when navigating the complexity of international ocean freight,” said Gerard Bradley, Director Americas Liner. “Being FMC-licensed isn’t just a regulatory checkbox, it’s a signal of trust. We’re proud to bring that trust into a new chapter of service,” he added. It is not the first time the firm has flirted with the freight forwarding sector. In 2018 it was acquired by the Dubai government which launched ISS Global Forwarding out of it. However,its ownership was transferred once againwhen it was bought by UK private equity platform Epiris in 2022. Inchape CEO at that time, Frank Olsen, said: “This investment by Epiris represents a rejuvenation of the company, enabling us to build on our solid business foundation, accelerate benefit realisation and unlock significant upside potential. “Inchcape can now move forward with deployment of capital to realise its strategic goal to become an aggregated platform in the maritime services industry and thereby accelerate realisation of benefits for our customers,” he added.

Low water levels may be looming along Europe’s heavily trafficked inland waterways, but the real issue remains congestion across container terminals and the second-class status afforded to barges. As reported byThe Loadstar,last weekwater levels on the Rhine dipped below 150cm – which in 2023 prompted operators to begin implementing low-water surcharges (LWS) – and have fallen further since. SeasC4U’s Gunther Ginckels toldThe Loadstarboth the Emmerich and Kaub gauges were low, “but not extreme”, with these stretches of the waterway still navigable, albeit with reduced loading capacity. Until water levels on these two gauges of the Rhine dropped below 80cm, Mr Ginckels said, “low water has no impact on delays – merely on the capacity and intake of the barges”. But he added: “The real problem is still the congestion experienced along the deepsea container terminals, with the average congestion‑related delay typically more than 96 hours, depending on terminal and season.” Homing in on the issues being experienced by barge users at Rotterdam, which has experienced typical handling delays of four days, and over recent years more than a full week, Mr Ginckels said there were “three dominant causes of delay”. These he identified as terminal congestion, tidal windows, and lock scheduling constraints, noting that all three issues interacted to create “cascading delays”. For instance, he said, a missed lock slot would lead to a delay of eight to 24 hours – a consequence of having to wait for the next available window, leading to delays in reaching terminals, which, if already congested, left barges at anchorage longer. Sources have toldThe Loadstarthat part of the issue surrounding missed lock slots was caused by overcrowding on the waterways, the result of barges being underutilised, more being “half-empty than full”. It is an issue Mr Ginckels said was in most urgent need of addressing if European inland waterways are to improve, stakeholders and governments needing to come together to ensure better asset utilisation. Antwerp is also experiencing critical congestion, with berth waiting times rising from 32 to 44 hours (a 37% increase) and containers staying up to eight days on the quay instead of the ideal five days. “Not the port authorities, nor the container terminals such as MPET, PSA, DP World in Antwerp and APMT, RWG and ECT in Rotterdam, nor the shipping companies are taking responsibility for these situations, nor taking concrete measures to resolve this,” he said. “On the contrary, they continue to point fingers at each other, with, as result, excessive volumes moving by road, adding to the already heavy congested traffic and profound pollution.”

Asia-Europe shippers on long-term contracts are beginning to feel the effects ofan early peak season,with allocations under threat due to strong spot market demand and carriers demanding high premiums to carry non-contracted cargo. “We’re definitely seeing the market hit a peak; carriers are taking the opportunity to hike rates and I’ve heard from other BCOs that their allocations are being cut,” one shipper toldThe Loadstartoday, adding that with fuel prices expected to rise as the US/Israel-Iran conflict continued. “As well as the obvious rate hikes, Chinese factories are pushing for importers to take goods earlier to avoid higher production costs due to the fuel and inflation – another layer as to why the peak is here earlier,” he said. Meanwhile, the ocean freight manager at one major European retailer claimed recent carrier behaviour towards long-term customers had become “unacceptable”. “The carriers have, basically, returned to their normal behaviour, which is how they can squeeze as much out of this as possible. “Potentially, this is an early peak season – we’ve got very high bookings at the moment, although we’re not sure how long that’s going to go on. “We’ve gone out to the carriers to see how they could help, and some of them basically said ‘you’ve taken your allocation, if you want more, then you have to pay for it – and here’s a premium rate’. “It’s just standard behaviour from them, and if this [Gulf] peace deal gets done, which I hope it does, then in four months’ time things will quieten down, and the carriers will be begging for our volume; and I am basically going to give it really hard to them. He added that one carrier had unilaterally reduced his allocation during one recent week, by 10%. “From a behavioural standpoint, it is completely grim – we’ve had major meetings at very senior levels and told them that that type of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. Well, they’ve just done it again,” he said. Peter Sand, chief analyst at freight rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, said many shippers that had been tempted to delay signing contracts due to the uncertainty created by the conflict, now faced rapidly escalating short-term costs. “It’s time to face reality – this crisis has gone on too long, the freight rate spikes are too severe, and the geopolitical situation remains too volatile for shippers to recover the financial damage in the second half of the year,” he said. “The question is, what can shippers do now to limit the full-year impact on budgets which have, once again, been blown apart by geopolitical conflict.” According to Xeneta data for the start of June, average spot rates on the transpacific into US west coast are “set to exceed 80% above pre-Middle East conflict levels”, with the Far East-US east coast, Far East-North Europe and Far East-Mediterranean trades expecting “spot rate increases of +70%, +44% and +40%, respectively, compared with the end of February”. “Those shippers that delayed locking into new long-term contracts in the hope the spot market eases as new supply chain networks are set up in the Middle East, cannot kick the can down the road forever. “If they blink first and lock into a long-term rate now, they could limit the damage in the second half of the year, even though they may be paying more than they budgeted for. Continuing to play on the spot market could be costly, given rates are still on an upward trajectory during a traditionally slack time of year,” Mr Sand said. However, with some carriers refusing to honour allocations, the European retailer’s contracts have been unable to protect him from further hikes as the peak season fully gets under way. “The fact is, any additional volume is at premium rate. Now, the premium rate is not utterly ridiculous, but it is $500-$1,000 more per box, and that’s painful. “And it is price-gouging; they just can’t help themselves,” he added. And Mr Sand cautioned: “There is no hiding place from this market turmoil. “Carriers entered the year facing a potential market collapse as services return to the Red Sea, but have ultimately found themselves able to charge higher and higher rates to shippers across the market willing to pay a premium to protect supply chains against global uncertainty,” he added.

As the Hormuz crisis goes into month four and we are still caught in that loop of trying to get a deal agreed, let’s talk Tech-land today. For me, that’s about zombie start-ups. Hence, a FreightTech play that has been in business for more than eight years and still has not been able to deliver a profitable business model, but continues to search for a “pivot“, continuing to burn investor capital. We have been following many of those since around 2012. Some of ...

US tariffs will support elevated ocean freight rates going into October, according to Wan Hai Lines’ GM, Tommy Hsieh (pictured above right). The 10% tariff imposed on US imports globally had caused Asian shippers to front-load before it expired next month, he told the company’s AGM on Friday.. Furthermore, Taiwan’s parliament, the Executive Yuan, has announced that the US would be likely to cap tariffs on imports of auto parts and wood-derivative products from the island, at 15%. Additionally, imports of steel, aluminium and copper-derivative products used in aircraft components would be exempted from tariffs under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act. Mr Hsieh said: “These goods are among the cargo shipped by Wan Hai, and the tariffs would support shipping demand. Given current market conditions, it won’t be easy to bring down freight rates.” The peak season for container shipping, typically between July and October, came early as Asian shippers, concerned with tightening vessel supply amid the US/Israel-Iran conflict, are moving out goods early to the US and Europe. On 18 May, Wan Hai and ONE jointly launched a transpacific service, which the Taiwanese operator is marketing as Asia Pacific 2 (AP2). Calling at Qingdao, Ningbo, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Qingdao, it will turn in six weeks and will initially deploy five ships with one skipped sailing in each cycle. ONE will operate three ships and Wan Hai will deploy two, starting with the 4,680 teuWan Hai 517. Besides the early peak season, Mr Hsieh said that the US/Israel-Iran conflict had nearly depleted inventories of consumer goods in the Middle East, a trend that should also support container shipping. “Restocking began in May, leading to congestion at some Red Sea ports and spillover effects to ports in India and Singapore, which also helped support rising freight rates. We expect freight rates to stay high into October,” he said. For Q1 26, Wan Hai’s revenue was down 9% from Q1 25, to $1.05bn (TW$33.64bn), while net profit declined 12%, to $240.3m. A dividend of TW$3 per share was declared.

The geopolitical disruption in the Middle East is beginning to reshape cargo flows into and across Africa, with Kigali emerging as an alternative routing point as shippers seek to avoid increasingly exposed trade corridors. According to Bosco Gakwaya, director of cargo services at RwandAir’s freight division, instability in the Gulf forced rapid contingency planning across the carrier’s cargo network and reinforced the strategic value of Kigali’s location in the centre of Africa. “The disruptions in the Gulf were obviously significant for the industry as a whole, and we moved quickly to protect our customers’ supply chains,” he toldThe Loadstar. “This triggered immediate flight suspensions across the region. Our teams were in contact with forwarding partners within hours to identify alternative routings for time critical consignments.” The comments offer a rare glimpse into how African carriers are responding to geopolitical volatility that has repeatedly disrupted global air cargo supply chains over the past year. While the Gulf crisis affected operators worldwide, RwandAir believes the fallout has accelerated a broader rethink around routing resilience and hub diversification, particularly for cargo moving between Africa, Europe and Asia. “The disruption has also driven a modal shift from sea to air, which has brought new cargo onto our network,” said Mr Gakwaya. “The situation has reinforced what we have long believed: that Kigali’s position at the heart of Africa, away from the world’s most exposed trade corridors, is a strategic asset, and one that more customers are now recognising.” That positioning is becoming increasingly important as African airlines compete to establish regional cargo hubs capable of handling rising intra-Africa trade, perishables exports and fast-growing e-commerce flows. Perishables remain central to RwandAir’s cargo operation, particularly exports into Europe, the Middle East and the UK. The airline said Africa-Europe volumes increased by around 6% year on year in the first half of 2025, driven largely by perishables traffic. At the same time, pharmaceuticals are becoming a larger component of inbound freight into Rwanda and neighbouring markets. “We bring critical medicines and healthcare products into Rwanda and the wider region on return sectors, and our handling standards reflect the care those shipments require,” added Mr Gakwaya. In the meantime, the airline is focusing on continuously improving cold chain handling and cargo processing at the Kigali facility. “Temperature integrity and ground dwell times matter as much as aircraft capacity for the perishables and pharma customers we serve,” he said. The carrier also sees significant long term growth potential in e-commerce, particularly as African online retail volumes continue to expand. Mr Gakwaya said IATA forecasts intra African e-commerce traffic would expand by 15% a year through to 2030, with RwandAir’s growing narrowbody network giving the carrier the frequency and consistency needed to support rising shipper demand. The airline has been expanding its dedicated cargo operations as it looks to deepen connectivity within Africa and beyond. RwandAir launched freighter services to Dubai and Djibouti in 2024, using a B737 800 converted freighter, complementing bellyhold capacity across its passenger network. According to Mr Gakwaya, the combination gives the airline operational flexibility across multiple cargo segments, from perishables to e-commerce shipments. Looking ahead, he sees East and Central Africa as underdeveloped cargo markets with significant growth potential, while also identifying the Africa-Asia corridor as an area of increasing strategic importance. “One to watch, with air freight volumes growing around 9.5% year on year in late 2025, and we are well placed to develop services that connect African exporters to Asian markets through Kigali,” Mr Gakwaya said. The long-term vision for Kigali’s cargo ambitions is tied closely to the planned Bugesera International Airport, which is expected to open around the end of 2028. The new airport, located about 40km south of Kigali, is expected to significantly expand Rwanda’s cargo handling capacity and transit potential at a time when several African states are attempting to strengthen logistics infrastructure in support of the African Continental Free Trade Area. “There’s a lot happening in Kigali at the moment, and it’s all very much aligned with our cargo growth plans,” Mr Gakwaya said. Alongside physical infrastructure investment, RwandAir is also pushing ahead with digitalisation across its cargo division, including deployment of Cargo Flash Infotech’s cloud-based nGen cargo management platform. The airline said the system supported booking, documentation, warehouse management, tracking, and final delivery, while also supporting future compatibility with IATA’s ONE Record cargo data exchange standard. “The direction of travel is clear: shippers want transparency and real-time data, and we are building the systems to deliver exactly that,” said Mr Gakwaya.

Highlighted here, ’more growth, more debt, more losses’ was the narrative at Denmark’s Scan Global only a year ago. Fast forward to first-quarter (Q1 26) numbers released last Friday (29 May), and the change in the headline story is quite noticeable. In prepared remarks, it was Scan CEO Allan Melgaard who reminded everybody that the “new phase” at Scan has a solid foundation: “Value creation through disciplined execution.” It means: chasing precious basis points, accretive to key P&L metrics, that must feed through ...