Mumbai vessel collision update: Ports to reopen August 15th

UPDATE – August 13, 2010:
First, an update on port operations:

India’s two biggest ports, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port and Mumbai Port, conducted limited operations on Friday.
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Salvagers cleared about 60 of the 300 containers that fell off of the MSC Chitra and spilled into the main channel of Mumbai Harbor, blocking the entrance to both ports.

Vessels with a draft of less than 30 feet were being allowed to enter and leave JNPT Friday during high tide and under naval escort.

“Unless the Navy scans the channels and finds it completely clear of containers, normal operations cannot resume,” N. Maharana, operations head at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, told Bloomberg News.

Mumbai Port has also begun limited operations, said H. Khatri, a deputy director at the government’s Directorate of Shipping, who is overseeing the clearance operations. He declined to comment on when the work may be completed.

A number of smaller draft vessels already departed yesterday and a number of similar size vessels are being allowed to call the port today. I can not comment on all the container lines that call Mumbai/JNPT, but can provide the following info on APL and Maersk, two of the carriers I use in my day job:

APL Melbourne (U.S. West Coast) – Original ETD of August 8th – vessel is at berth and awaiting permission to depart, which could happen any time.

APL Doha (U.S. West Coast) – vessel is supposedly at berth and is scheduled for August 15th departure. Some container bookings not already loaded on the APL Melbourne are being switched to this vessel.

APL Sharjah (U.S. West Coast) – vessel has been changed to APL Chicago with an ETD of August 18th.

Maersk Utah (U.S. East Coast) – Original ETD of August 12th – skipped Mumbai/JNPT completely and discharged all Mumbai/JNPT cargo in Pipavav. All cargo originally booked for this vessel is now delayed a week and will instead depart on the Maersk Missouri, ETD August 19th

Nedlloyd Hudson (U.S. West Coast) – Berthed since August 8th and awaiting permission to depart.

Nedlloyd Barentz (U.S. West Coast) – All Mumbai/JNPT cargo will instead be discharged in Pipavav. Vessel will NOT call Mumbai/JNPT so any outbound cargo booked for this vessel will instead leave a week later or more.

Both carriers are accepting bookings ex-Mumbai/JNPT, including for inland points that route through the ports. I have asked both carriers how they plan to handle and route new bookings through what will be a very backlogged and congested port. I also asked why they wouldn’t route cargo through either Mundra or Pipavav respectively until things clear up in Mumbai. So far, no reply other than they are working on getting their vessels moving as the port clears up and are looking at options.

According to Bloomberg, the government aims to have all the containers floating/sunk in the harbor cleared tomorrow. I find this hard to believe considering only 60 of the roughly 300 have been removed.

Meanwhile, MSC continues to claim the Khalijia III was at fault.

ORIGINAL STORY DATED AUGUST 10, 2010

The big news yesterday was the collision of two vessels in Mumbai harbor on Saturday, with one of the vessels involved a 2300+ TEU MSC container vessel, thereby closing the harbor to all incoming and outgoing vessel traffic. Full story here. Today it appears that local officials are planning for an August 15th reopening for both Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru ports. That’s a full week after the initial collision: that means a week’s backlog of vessel calls to and from the port and a massive backlog of containers currently sitting at JNPT and Mumbai. And all of this hinges on whether the local authorities can remove enough containers from the water on time and either get the MSC vessel out of the way or safely route vessels around her.

According to a report today from the JOC, MSC has recovered the “black box” from their vessel and is claiming the other vessel, the Khalijia III, is at fault:

“…the Khaligia 3, with salvors’ escort tugs in attendance, left what we believe was the Khaligia 3’s anchorage position, and crossed the fairway ahead of the MSC Chitra heading generally southbound and turning to port.

“For reasons not known to us, the Khaligia 3 unexpectedly continued turning to port, and came back to cross the fairway again, now heading in a generally northbound direction, and struck the MSC Chitra on the MSC Chitra’s port side while the MSC Chitra was still properly navigating in the main channel.”

Meanwhile, the India government is ordering salvagers to speed up the removal of containers that fell overboard from the MSC Chitra:

“This work has to be speeded up,” Rakesh Srivastava, joint secretary for ports at the Ministry of Shipping said in an interview after a meeting to discuss the recovery measures today. Salvagers are retrieving only four to six boxes a day of the 300 floating and submerged, he said.

According to this same report from Bloomberg, some 32 ships have been either stranded in the port or awaiting arrival. Some crude oil deliveries have been delayed as well as soybean meal exports. How are salvagers removing containers from the water? Via floating cranes:

Cranes mounted on barrages have moved closer to the sinking ship to collect falling or floating containers. MSC Chitra started sinking after it collided with another vessel MV Khalijia on Saturday.

Some carriers are already planning contingencies to route around Mumbai temporarily for India import and export cargo. You should check with your logistics service provider or carrier for their current plans on routing import/export containers from India. Below is a map of alternate port services to Mumbai and a tentative list of the carriers that already have services there (click for larger view):

Pipavav – called by Maersk Line, NYK Line, UASC, Hanjin, K-Line, Hyundai, MOL

Mundra – called by APL, MSC, Hapag Lloyd, NYK Line, CMA-CGM, Zim Line

Above is just a tentative list, I may have missed a carrier or two. I know from my own contacts that Maersk Line is considering discharging Mumbai cargo at Pipavav and will make a decision soon on how they will handle export cargo. APL is considering routing U.S. East Coast cargo via Mundra. In both cases, the carriers will have to sort out the rail connections to Mundra and Pipavav – no idea on whether they have plans to rail pending containers back from Mumbai over to Pipavav and Mundra.

My understanding is that no alternative exists yet for the U.S. West Coast for APL and Maersk as both carriers trans-ship from Mumbai/JNPT to Asia via feeder vessel for mother vessels calling the U.S. West Coast from Asia. I would assume that both of them could instead rail containers to Pipavav and Mundra and have feeder vessels call there instead of Mumbai, but I have not heard any news regarding this. Again, check with your respective logistics service providers and carriers.

Cargo ships collide at Mumbai – all inbound and outbound sailings suspended

If you source from India and your logistics service provider is any good, hopefully they’ve already given you a heads up. There was a major accident in Mumbai harbor when the vessel MV Khalijia III, carrying steel coils, and a container ship, the 2,314 TEU MSC Chitra, collided on Saturday. There were no reported injuries or deaths and the India Coast Guard rescued all sailors. The MSC Chitra has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 containers overboard and is listing dangerously in the harbor. The good news is that the oil leak from the MSC Chitra into the harbor has been plugged. However, there is still the oil slick to deal with and also the danger of further environmental damage as it appears some of the containers that have gone overboard contain hazardous materials:

At least 31 containers with hazardous chemicals including organo-phosphorous pesticides, sodium hydrochloride and pyrethroid pesticides are on board and quite a few of them might have tumbled into the sea and their contents leaked, he said.

The biggest impact to the global supply chain is the closure of Jawaharlal Nehru / Mumbai ports. Already the ports have been closed for 2 days and there’s no firm timetable for when they will reopen:

It may take “at least a couple of days” for normal operations to resume, said Venkatesh, whose group represents about 130 exporters and freight forwarders. He said there hasn’t been a similar collision in the channels off Mumbai in his 30 years in the industry.

As the above linked article mentions, these two ports handle about 40% of the exports coming out of India. If your company sources from India, chances are the majority of your product comes through these port complexes. There are a number of vessels sitting in the harbor awaiting departure and a number of vessels that are delaying arrival due to the closure. Check with your respective carriers and logistics service providers to see which of your containers / vessels are being delayed due to the temporary port closure.

Here’s a short news clip from India on the vessel collision.

As slightly longer video with more commentary on the oil spill from the MSC vessel here:

China’s rising labor costs: will it hurt their competitiveness?

Patrick Chovanec is a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing. I first stumbled upon him when I found a very interesting post of his on what he called “The Nine Nations of China” which broke down China into 9 distinct regions, which I highly recommend you check out. Since then I have checked in with his blog regularly, as well as occasional other articles he does for other publications.

He has an interesting article in China Economic Review regarding the current labor situation in China and the trend to value-added manufacturing vs. simple low-cost manufacturing which I tend to agree with:

The crunch is concentrated almost entirely in the market for more skilled, experienced workers – and it is becoming more acute as manufacturers try to move up the value chain. Virtually all of the high-profile cases where Chinese workers have successfully pressed their demands have involved activities – like automotive or electronics manufacturing – whose skill requirements make qualified employees hard to recruit, expensive to train, and difficult to replace.

That sounds like bad news for Chinese manufacturers; it doesn’t have to be. The day after Hon Hai announced its planned wage increase, the company’s stock price dropped by 5% on fears that it wouldn’t be able to pass those higher costs onto customers. But if investors looked closer, they would see that the company’s success is largely based on an ability to deliver quality and reliability, while ensuring protection of its customers’ proprietary designs and technologies.

Even in simple, comparatively lower cost product categories I have seen examples where companies stuck with, or returned, to Chinese manufacturers whose labor and/or other costs had recently risen. Why? Because while those Chinese manufacturers may have raised prices, their quality, consistency, reliability, and ease of doing business added value to the transaction that outweighed the increase in price. Similarly I’ve seen examples where Chinese factories raised prices simply because they thought they could based on the market conditions widely reported – but failed to improve or even maintain current levels of product quality, etc.

While China still has a large basis of low-value manufacturing, they continue to take a climb up the value ladder. Even in lower value manufacturing, those Chinese factories with a long-term view who cultivate strong working relationships with their clients, adding value and consistency to their product, should continue to enjoy success.

2010 Retail container imports may have peaked

According to the NRF (National Retail Federation’s) monthly July Global Port Tracker report:

“The traditional peak season may be melting away,” said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, which produces the Port Tracker for the NRF.

The report said double-digit increases in June and July apparently were swollen by backlogs that developed earlier this year when carriers moved slowly to reactivate ships they idled during the recession.

“With many retailers appearing to bring merchandise in early to avoid any further bottlenecks, July is likely to be the peak shipping month for 2010 rather than the traditional rush of holiday season merchandise in October,” the report said.

It’s important to note that this report tracks import container ARRIVALS at U.S. ports, not origin departures. The report is expecting July to have the highest container volume at 1.38 million TEUs with August and September dropping slightly to 1.32 million TEUs each.

I’m going to disagree with their assessment of July being the highest volume month. Our sources in the market seem to indicate that the last two weeks of August and first two weeks of September could likely be the busiest, and challenging, weeks for shipments departing Asia. That would mean containers arriving mostly in September for U.S. ports. In addition, equipment and space out of China is becoming increasingly difficult in August, not easier. This is particularly true for vessel bookings post August 15th. On top of this, multiple container lines, especially Maersk, are having equipment shortages, particularly acute in South China. Thus, I believe that import container volume will be heaviest in September, not July, and that August is already looking to be quite heavy as well.

I do agree that the container lines may have gotten a little greedy and ahead of themselves with their never-ending rate increases. I think the peak season will soften sooner and more rapidly than the container line industry thinks. All this talk of non-expiring PSS or PSS with expiration dates of Feb/Mar/Apr of next year may collapse if Nov/Dec comes along and volumes drop. The level of retail sales simply does not support the current trend of heavy double digit increases in volume – at some point, inventory levels will stabilize or companies may find out they ordered too much and volumes will stabilize or even come down. While carriers have been largely allocating vessels to the profitable Asia-Europe trade lanes, eventually more capacity will be coming to the Trans-Pacific trade.

Chinese New Year, of course, could change everything, at least temporarily until the next contract season. But even Chinese New Year could be subdued if enough retailers have a weak Holiday season. I’m still on the fence as to whether we’ll experience a double-dip recession or even a worsening of the economy, but at the very best economic growth has slowed and I expect the latter half of the year, including the holiday season, to grow only moderately.

Bottom line, I think there’s still a lot of life left in the current Peak Season from Asia, especially China, that will see import container volumes go even higher in September. However, I have a hunch that the market will soften, and fairly quickly, sometime post-September.

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