Industry News

Wednesday 11/05/22

A NSW man and a German national with suspected links to organised crime have been charged by the AFP for allegedly importing 320kg of cocaine into Western Australia.

A multi-agency investigation led to the arrest of the men, aged 37 and 49, in Port Hedland in the Pilbara on Sunday morning.

The older man was arrested in a campervan where investigators allegedly found the illicit drugs, which were in 320 individual blocks, each weighing about one kilogram. Those blocks ...

Monday 16/05/22

May 20 has been given as the first official deadline for Shanghai, China’s largest city, to open up.

The metropolis, home to the world’s largest container port, entered lockdown in late March for what was meant to be 10 days as part of China’s strict zero-covid policy.

Most of the city’s 25m population have been living in lockdown ever since with a deleterious effect on local transport.

Up until last Friday, Shanghai authorities had been unwilling to give a firm ...

Thursday 12/05/22

Australian Police and the Australian Border Force are investigating a bulker vessel that arrived in Newcastle over the weekend after the body of a diver was discovered along the shoreline near packets believed to be cocaine. Authorities said the port had been under observation as a point of risk for drug smuggling but they are puzzled by the odd circumstances of this situation leading them to believe it is part of a larger smuggling effort.

The 60,000 dwt ...

Thursday 05/05/22

Australian shippers are battling a double-whammy of spiralling supply chain inflation, container detention fees and delays to manufacturing in China.

Not shy of criticising the “foreign-owned” shipping lines serving Australia, today the Freight & Trade Alliance (F&TA) has again called for greater regulation of the shipping industry, because of “unreasonable fees”.

It said: “Australians are paying more than one billion dollars a year in unreasonable international shipping fees, in addition to record high freight rates and a spate of ...

Wednesday 04/05/22

On 11 January 2019, the Illicit Tobacco Taskforce (ITTF) led investigations which identified a sea cargo container that held about 10 million illegally imported cigarettes. The contents of the container had been declared as “office furniture”. 

The illegal cigarettes had a potential duty evaded value of more than AUD $8.5 million. 

On receipt of the goods, the man was arrested and charged with tobacco smuggling offences under section 233BABAD of the Customs Act 1901 after accessing the container.

The man ...

Friday 29/04/22

Mass testing is now underway in Beijing, the latest mega city to face to tough wrath of the country’s zero-Covid policy.

Port and hinterland snarl-ups across the world’s most populous nation are wreaking havoc for manufacturers and logisticians alike.

While Shanghai has been grabbing the most headlines for its near-month-long lockdown, similar municipal closures are widespread across the People’s Republic. Data from research company Gavekal Dragonomics shows that as of April 20 57 out of China’s top 100 cities ...

Thursday 21/04/22

Airfreight diverted from lockdown-hit Shanghai Pudong (PVG) is clogging up China’s other major airports, causing a shortage of pallets for exports.Forwarders have singled out Zhengzhou Airport (CGO), in the central Henan province, as the hardest-hit, given the large amount of cargo diverted there from Shanghai.

Adding to the difficulties, Zhengzhou was itself began a two-week lockdown over the weekend that including the economic zone, with restrictions on travel and vehicle permits.

“It’s not a real lockdown, but more ...

Wednesday 20/04/22

Since March 27, authorities in Shanghai began a snap lockdown of the city’s roughly 26 million residents after a mass testing revealed “large scale” Covid-19 infections.

Since then, stories of desperate citizens struggling to find food have spawned rare protests in the city—and viral videos of residents screaming from their high-rise apartments to share their frustration. But despite the outrage, President Xi Jinping said last week that China’s zero-COVID policy “cannot be relaxed.”

That’s bad news for supply chains that are already feeling the stress of ...

Tuesday 19/04/22

At 7:12 Sunday morning, the Ever Forward was refloated after being stuck in the mud at Chesapeake Bay for more than a month. A high tide, along with a month’s worth of hard work – dredging around the ship and moving 505 containers – finally brought success, however, now the State of Maryland has asked Evergreen to establish a so-called responsibility fund to pay for costs related to the month-long grounding of the vessel.

William Doyle, ...

Wednesday 13/04/22

Container removal began Saturday as part of the Ever Forward boxship refloat operation in Chesapeake Bay.

The process – using barges alongside – will continue in daylight hours throughout this week with four to five containers being offloaded per hour in the complex operation. Approximately 550 containers are expected to be transferred.

The Ever Forward salvage operation began on March 13 after the 334 m long containership grounded in Chesapeake Bay near the Craighill Channel.

Sal Mercogliano, a maritime historian at Campbell University ...