State of Ocean Cargo: Cutting through the fog

In the wildly unstable ocean cargo carrier arena, three major consortia are fighting for market share, with some players simply hanging on for survival. Meanwhile, shippers may expect deployment shifts as a consequence of the Panama Canal expansion.

One year since the publication of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development International Transport Forum’s report on “The Impact of Mega Ships,” there has been no serious response by the shipping industry to the issues it identified—namely the wider external costs imposed by mega ships and alliances of others in the supply chain, including shippers, port, terminal operators and governments.