Page 6 - Al-Rashed Newsletter March 2022

SHIPPING WORLD

Most leading shipping companies have halted their services to Russia
except COSCO Shipping, says GlobalData
Most global shipping companies have suspended cargo bookings temporarily
to and from Russia amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis, says GlobalData. The
leading data and analytics company notes that essential goods such as
medical equipment, food, and humanitarian aid continue to be transported.
Sathiya Jalapathy, Business Fundamentals Analyst at GlobalData,
comments: “The decision by many global shipping companies to halt their
services to Russia could put the country in a difficult position as it will
struggle to import goods such as motor vehicles and spare parts, industrial
machinery and equipment, apparel and electrical machinery.”
One company that continues to transport goods is COSCO Shipping. The
company’s tanker fleet continues to transport crude oil, which is Russia’s
major export commodity, to China.
Jalapathy adds: “COSCO is offering economic succour for Russia as it faces
a barrage of economic sanctions from various governments.”

Foldable shipping containers could ease supply chain woes
A company called Staxxon in Montclair, New Jersey, is planning to sell a
newfangled shipping container that's "designed to fold in an accordion-style
fashion, and shrink to 1/5 the size of a regular container."
Why it matters: Most standard shipping containers return home empty, so if
cargo ships can fit more of them on a return journey by collapsing them, it
could help ease today's notorious supply chain woes.
Using Staxxon, truckers will also be able to transport five times as many
empty containers, the company says.
Where it stands: Staxxon's 20-foot units are not on the market yet, but there
are other foldable shipping containers out there — most notably from a Dutch
company called 4Fold that says its foldable container "saves up to 37% in
costs and CO₂."
"More than 15 carriers and shippers navigating 60 ports worldwide are
testing the Delft, the Netherlands-based company’s environmentally
friendly containers that can be folded into a quarter of their volume,
taking up less space on trucks, ships and docks," per Bloomberg.
Bloomberg quoted Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of the giant shipping
line A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, who called foldable containers the "dream of
DID YOU KNOW? the shipping industry" and said that Procter & Gamble was testing them.
The bottom line: "Despite sparking hope among carriers and shippers, higher
The filling in Kit Kats is made from upfront costs and hesitancy to turn to a new business model have kept
damaged Kit Kats
The Twitter bird has a name- it's foldable containers from becoming mainstream," Bloomberg writes.
called Larry
Santa Claus was given an official
pilot’s license in 1927. When the big
man in red makes his annual trip
around the globe on Christmas Eve,
you can sleep even more soundly
knowing he’s legal to drive.

Source: www.https://www.axios.com/foldable-shipping-containers, www.hellenicshippingnews.com