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 IRAN
Recent reports indicate that Iran is in the process of spending huge
amounts of money in increasing their ocean ports capacity and their
fleet of ocean vessels. These reports state that they expect to vastly increase their
global trade, and in particular their large oil resources.
May we hope that their shipping
more oil around the world will steady or reduce the price of oil?
Even though the United States does not trade with Iran, will
those countries who buy oil from Iran buy less oil from the
countries the U.S. buys oil from, bringing the supply of oil up and
the price down? May we hope that Iran does not pursue nuclear bombs in hopes
of not getting their improved ocean ports and fleet blown up?
Global trade has been shown to
be a deterrent to war. As
a rule people who trade with each other do not make war with each
other. Hopefully Iran
will someday not be on the boycott list and allowed to once again
trade with the U.S.
 SHORT
SEA SHIPPING
We have discussed the merits of
short sea shipping before from the standpoint of avoiding the high
cost of ocean port dredging. More
and more very large ocean containerships are being built, which are
not suited to calling at all U.S. ports, unless the ports are
improved and deepened. These new and larger vessels are becoming more efficient in
terms of moving more cargo faster and using less fuel.
The ideas we discussed earlier
involved using the new monster containerships at the naturally very
deep ports and feed containers to them from the shallow draft ports.
We also mentioned going back to using the Great Lakes
shipping from some three decades ago.
Now there are indications that the Maritime Administration is
about to announce some interesting and innovative changes.
Among them could be the proposal to eliminate the harbor
maintenance tax on domestic cargoes at U.S. ports in order to entice
more cargo to the water. Another
could be incentives to route hazardous cargo via water, rather than
through cities via truck or rail.
We need to stay tuned for changes.
 MEXICAN
TRUCKING
On February 23, 2007 U.S.
Secretary of Transportation, Mary E. Peters, authorized a one-year
pilot program to allow cross border trucking between the U.S. and
Mexico, beyond the current twenty-five mile limit.
This program will allow approximately 100 U.S. truckers to
deliver international cargo anywhere in Mexico, and it will allow
approximately 100 Mexican truckers to deliver international cargo
anywhere in the U.S. Both
the U.S. and Mexican truckers will be required to meet all safety
and security standards of both countries and maintain insurance in
both countries.
This pilot program will only
involve international cargo. Mexican
truckers will not be allowed to haul U.S. domestic freight from
Atlanta to Dallas, and U.S. truckers will not be allowed to haul
Mexican domestic freight from Monterrey to Mexico City.
It may only be international freight originating in one of
the two countries and delivering in the other of the two countries.
This will, however, eliminate part of the bottleneck of
transferring freight from one trucker to another at the U.S./Mexican
border. If you have
freight moving into or out of Mexico, now would be a good time to
talk with your trucker and your forwarder/broker to see if they are
participating in this new program.
This could cut down on some of the transit time and cost of
freight between the U.S. and Mexico.
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 INTERMODAL
EQUIPMENT
Speaking of international freight, the U.S. Department
of Transportation has proposed new regulations specifying
responsibilities of the ocean carrier and the trucker regarding the
maintenance and condition of the ocean container and the chassis.
You may remember some years ago a piece fell off a chassis on
a freeway near the Mitchell International Airport and went under a
van and caused the van to explode and kill a number of people in the
van.
There is an ongoing concern
about who is responsible for the condition of the intermodal
equipment regardless of the interchange agreement between the ocean
carrier and the trucker.
The proposed regulation outlined in the Federal Register asks for
comments until the deadline of March 21, 2007.
It will be interesting to see how any resulting legislation
determines not only who is responsible for the condition of the
intermodal equipment, but who and how a determination is made that
the equipment is safe for the highways.
Stay tuned.
 GENERAL
AVERAGE
You have most likely seen
pictures in magazines, newspapers and on TV about severe damage,
which large containerships recently sustained in ocean storms.
Some containers were lost overboard or intentionally
jettisoned overboard in an effort to save the ship and the crew and
the rest of the cargo.
This is a primary instance when
General Average is declared. General
Average is a method whereby everybody who owns any part of the ship
or anything on it participates in the payment of damage to the lost
or damaged cargo, whether their cargo is damaged or not.
Whether you are a buyer or seller of international freight,
be sure somebody has insured the freight from warehouse to warehouse
and that the insurance includes General Average.
 WINTER
Hopefully, by the time you read this article, much of
the snow will be gone, and the long Winter will soon be out of here
and Spring won’t be too far behind.
If you’re in international trade, are you able to travel to
the other side of the equator during our cold season?
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