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Houston cuts free time on reefer importers amid ongoing high dwells

The Port of Houston is reducing the free time given to refrigerated container imports at its marine terminals because shippers continue to leave reefer cargo past the port’s allotted grace period.

The Board of Commissioners for the Port Houston Authority approved Monday a change to the terminal tariffs that will reduce the free time for a refrigerated container to four days from the current seven-day period in place for all containers. The policy change comes as reefer imports, while still a small part of the port’s business, grow faster than Houston’s dry cargo imports.

The tariff change will take effect May 1. Reefer shippers will still have an additional three days of free time available if a container requires an inspection by US Customs and Border Protection or the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In asking for the tariff change, Chief Port Operations Officer Ryan Mariacher said the move would align Houston’s policies with how other ports handle refrigerated containers.

“This supports the shippers that need to expedite the handling of these commodity types,” Mariacher said. “We want to be a transit facility, not a storage facility.”

Mariacher did not say how long refrigerated containers are dwelling at the port. But in June 2025, when the port approved a higher rate of demurrage on refrigerated boxes, he said some shippers had been leaving their reefer shipments at the port for a week or more.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

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Asia-Europe air cargo space tightens as rates, fuel surcharges soar

Shippers of Asia-Europe air cargo are being hit with a double whammy of rapidly rising freight rates and soaring fuel surcharges as Middle East cargo gets rerouted, China picks up production after Lunar New Year and jet fuel prices double.

An estimated 30% of Asia-Europe air cargo is routed via the Middle East, and with options through the region severely constrained by the ongoing US-Iran war, a rush for Asia-Europe air cargo capacity is pushing up rates with hefty fuel surcharges rolled out on top.

While data from Freightos shows spot rates on China-Europe are up about 13% compared with last week, the rates from South Asia to Europe have increased 82% since before the war started. The Baltic Air Index had Singapore outbound rates up 47.6% last week compared with the previous week as Middle East airspace closures drove diversions from Gulf hubs to Asian gateways, tightening capacity.

Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, said rates climbed sharply following the outbreak of war and the airspace closures, but in the last few days prices have leveled off on many lanes.

“That may reflect some capacity recovery by Emirates, as well as Etihad, or the addition of direct Asia-Europe capacity by European airlines and carriers from the Far East,” he said.

Several freighter operators and integrators have repositioned capacity to serve growing demand on Asia-Europe markets, but a protracted regional conflict could see rates climb even higher.

“If this continues, we will see increases of 100% to 200% on the short-term market,” Van de Wouw noted. “In fact, I am picking up anecdotal evidence that this is already happening in selected markets.”

Fuel surcharges on the rise

Airlines are reviewing their fuel surcharges weekly instead of every month as the war-driven spike in prices piles additional cost on top of what is already a significant portion of a carrier’s expenses.

Cathay Pacific’s cargo fuel surcharge will increase from HK$3.20 ($0.41)/kg on March 19 to HK$12.9 ($1.65)/kg from March 20. Lufthansa Cargo raised its air freight surcharge from €0.85 ($0.97)/kg to €1.20 ($1.27)/kg, effective March 16, while IAG Cargo has hedged more than 60% of its fuel for 2026 and has not announced any new fuel surcharge.

Jet fuel typically accounts for 20% to 30% of an airline’s total cost base, and with international carriers forced to fly longer distances to avoid Middle East conflict zones with reduced payloads, those costs are mounting fast.

Maersk told customers in an advisory Friday that its fuel surcharges will be reviewed on a weekly basis and adjusted in line with developments in aviation fuel prices, based on established market indexes. For contract renewals where no fuel surcharge mechanism is in place, Maersk has proposed that 15% of the rate is allocated to fuel.

Demand is also growing for multimodal alternatives, with road freight being used to move cargo from Asia to Europe and between transport hubs in the Middle East as an alternative to air.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

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As war rages, multimodal demand surges on Asia-Europe landbridge

Major ocean carriers are offering land-based solutions for cargo going to and from the war-hit Persian Gulf, with the only ocean entry point via the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to shipping.

Maersk is delivering Gulf-bound cargo to ports in the region for onward transport by another mode.

“We are using Salalah [Oman] and Khor Fakkan [UAE] for cargo that comes from the east and are securing trucking capacity to take it into the Gulf,” said Maersk CCO Karsten Kildahl. “For cargo that comes from Europe, we focus mainly on Jeddah [on the Red Sea] and are deploying trucks to take the cargo 1,500 km across the Arabian Peninsula through the desert.”

Mediterranean Shipping Co. is using its Asia-Mediterranean Dragon and Jade services to move cargo inland to the Persian Gulf via King Abdullah and Jeddah ports in Saudi Arabia. Key inland destinations in the Gulf include Damman, Riyadh, Jubail, Bahrain, Kuwait, Hamad, Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi.

CMA CGM has reopened its export bookings with immediate effect from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and is deploying multimodal solutions around feeder ships and trucking.

Options include carrier haulage from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain via bonded landbridge to Sohar in Oman. From the UAE, solutions are CMA CGM land bridge to Sohar and trucks from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Dammam via bonded landbridge across Saudia Arabia to Jeddah.

In general for Asia-Europe needs, DHL Global Forwarding said customer enquiries for both road and rail solutions “have risen notably” as reliability improves and shippers look for alternatives to higher cost air freight.

“To address these needs, DHL Global Forwarding is working continuously on more alternative and multimodal transport concepts that further strengthen connectivity between Asia and Europe,” a DHL spokesperson said, declining to provide volume figures.

Rising demand for Asia-Europe land transport

Forwarders are reporting rising demand for road and rail transport from Asia to Europe as transit times and reliability improve and cross-border procedures become more predictable.

Transit times for road from China to Europe are between 12 and 19 days, while rail freight transits are 10 to 25 days. Rates from Chinese terminals to European terminals are volatile and vary from week to week, influenced by demand, bottlenecks on the Poland-Belarus border, and disruption in ocean shipping.

An automotive shipper based in Europe said trucking solutions out of Asia had matured and currently offered better pricing than in the past.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

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Carriers seek to offload stranded Asia-Middle East containers at Indian ports

An estimated 100,000 TEUs of Far East-originated cargo that has become stranded en route to the Middle East is set to land across Indian ports as ocean carriers divert from the war zone, market sources in India say.

All major long-haul liners are seeking temporary supply chain asylum at Indian docks to offload containers that departed ports in China and Southeast Asia in recent days, according to local industry sources who spoke with the Journal of Commerce.

Representatives from Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, Ocean Network Express, and Cosco Shipping are already in discussions with authorities at the Indian West Coast ports of Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Pipavav and Kandla to strike yard space deals for the storage of diverted loads, the sources said.

With a planned rerouting count of approximately 40,000 TEUs, Maersk is also considering Gangavaram Port on India’s southern East Coast as an additional discharge point, the sources added.

Maersk could not be reached for comment.

Carriers at Nhava Sheva are primarily engaging with PSA International’s flagship Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT), which now has measurable spare cargo-handling space following the 2025 terminal expansions that doubled annual throughput capacity to 4.8 million TEUs.

BMCT has already handled a few ships diverted to Nhava Sheva to drop boxes, including Hapag-Lloyd’s 24,000-TEU Damietta Express, while terminal berthing data updated Thursday points to a lineup of nine ad-hoc calls through March 19. The terminal can stack up to 25,000 TEUs on dock, with capacity for 3,000 reefer plug-ins for refrigerated cargo, without causing major operational pressure on the quayside, sources noted.

Port and customs authorities in Nhava Sheva are collaborating to identify and allocate dedicated extra yard space off the dock in line with recent government directives to ease Middle East supply chain pain points.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. is already a significant regional transshipment player at Mundra and Vizhinjam in the south, riding on its strategic partnerships with Adani Ports, and there are no indications the carrier will stop using those ports to handle stranded cargo.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

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LA terminals to extend gates to mitigate disruption during bridge closure

Long Beach, California — Port and marine terminal executives say they have a plan to minimize disruption during the two-year redecking of a key bridge at the entry of the Los Angeles harbor that includes keeping truck gates open longer and on weekends.

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) will close the 63-year-old Vincent Thomas Bridge, which handles about 53,000 vehicles a day, including 3,400 heavy-duty trucks, in one direction from March 23 to Nov. 1, followed by a complete closure through November 2028.

In addition to extra truck gates, port stakeholders in Los Angeles have been working with Caltrans for two years to develop and improve a detour route of surface streets that connect with major Southern California freeways. Local police agencies will provide continuous traffic control to respond to accidents and other events that disrupt traffic flow.

A system of more than 40 Caltrans cameras — and more than 700 cameras throughout the ports’ six container terminals — will provide real-time information on traffic conditions, enabling terminal operators to respond immediately to delays, according to Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.

With 6,000 to 8,000 trucks operating in the harbor every day, an open line of communication among Caltrans, terminals and truckers will be crucial to ensuring minor disruptions don’t turn into prolonged congestion, said Matt Schrap, chief commercial officer of Forum Mobility and former CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association (HTA).

The HTA must now impress upon ocean carriers the need for additional free time for container storage at the terminals if traffic disruptions related to the $1.5 billion redecking project delay pickups, he added.

In the meantime, the port will continue to push its proposal to construct a new, taller bridge that would allow super-post Panamax vessels to call the Yusen Terminals, TraPac and West Basin terminals, Seroka said.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

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CBP lays out initial tariff refund plan that requires ‘minimal’ work from importers

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will need 45 days to set up the process for importers to begin receiving refunds for tariffs charged under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). But those shippers will not have to sue the administration for relief, according to a declaration filed with US Court of International Trade (CIT).

CIT earlier in the week ordered CBP to immediately refund the estimated $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs paid by shippers before the US Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump did not have the authority to impose them. Refund payments will also include interest, which would cost the US government an additional $23 million for each day that passes prior to payment, according to an estimate from the CATO Institute.

However, because “existing administrative procedures and technology are not well-suited to a task of this scale,” it would have taken more than 4 million hours for agency workers to manually examine shipment documentation to determine refund amounts, CBP said in the filing.

Crucially, the process being set up by CBP “would spare the hundreds of thousands of small businesses who are owed refunds from having to litigate to obtain them,” Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the US Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement Friday. As of March 4, more than 2,000 importers had already filed lawsuits with CIT seeking refunds since the Feb. 20 Supreme Court ruling.

Shippers would receive the refund as a single payment, regardless of how many shipments or different cargoes they imported, according to the filing. CBP estimates there are more than 330,000 importers eligible for refunds on more than 53 million customs entries.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC

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Gemini partners unveil revamp of some Asia services to Europe, Med

Gemini Cooperation partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd on Friday announced a revamp of some Asia-Europe and Mediterranean alliance services, with extra port calls and larger ships, mainly beginning in April.

Five services are covered by the adjustments, which are being made to give “stronger market coverage and faster products on key Asia-North Europe and Mediterranean trades,” Hapag-Lloyd said in an advisory.

The most significant change on Asia-Europe services has been made on the AE3/NE3 loop, which will see the introduction of a Baltic rotation with calls at Aarhus (Denmark) and Gothenburg (Sweden), significantly enhancing market coverage in that region.

Southampton will become the final European outbound call to Asia, strengthening UK export flows, while Spain’s Algeciras will be dropped from the rotation, the carriers said.

In Asia, the service will call at Shenzhen’s Yantian port, “improving optionality for customers favoring Pearl River Delta connectivity,” Hapag-Lloyd said.

While the service will continue to start from Shanghai, the call at Ningbo has been relinquished.

The new rotation is: Shanghai, Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas (Malaysia), London Gateway, Aarhus, Gothenburg, Rotterdam, Southampton, and Singapore.

The Gemini partners confirmed that Antwerp would be added to the AE1/NE2 service, but the loop would no longer call at APM Terminals TC1 facility in Tangier. The call at Tanger Alliance TC3 terminal will continue.

The Antwerp call, initially announced by the carriers in an advisory earlier this month, will expand the “hinterland reach and improving access to key Benelux and European cargo flows,” Hapag-Lloyd said Friday.

The first westbound sailing will be made by the 23,664-TEU Hamburg Express that will depart Shanghai on March 6 and call Antwerp on April 21. The revised rotation is: Shanghai, Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, London Gateway, Tangier (TC3), and Singapore.

Hapag-Lloyd said the NE4/AE4 loop will revert to its previous rotation without the Baltic loop, which is now covered by the NE3. “This creates one of the fastest, direct Ningbo-Germany connections in the market, responding to strong customer demand,” the carrier said.

Consequently, Maersk said calls will be added at Ningbo and Algeciras, but Yantian will be dropped.

The full loop comprises Qingdao, Ningbo, Tanjung Pelepas, London Gateway, Bremerhaven and Hamburg in Germany, Rotterdam, Algeciras, and Tanjung Pelepas.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source: JOC