Online Shipping News

INTTRA, the multi-carrier e-commerce network for ocean shipping, announce that Craft Multimodal has entered into an agreement to join the INTTRA Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier (NVOCC) network. Craft, a market-leading cargo consolidator for import and export services in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, offers 180 routes throughout South America. Under the agreement, Craft will leverage the INTTRA platform to reduce manual shipment processing and improve access to shipment information through a comprehensive e-commerce shipping solution. The agreement includes an accelerated implementation leveraging INTTRA’s online shipping capabilities for all of Craft’s brands, affiliates and customers.

Security Exchange signs up CustomWeather as the weather data provider for its online shipping risk product, 'ShipAssure'. CustomWeather provides key forecast data regarding ocean and wind conditions to support Security Exchange’s identification of opportunities for safest passage and avoidance of pirate attacks at sea. By incorporating CustomWeather’s 7-day, 3-hourly forecasts for wave height and direction, as well as wind speed and direction into ShipAssure, a web-based vessel tracking and risk system, Security Exchange is able to better assess piracy risk around the globe. Data is provided as map tile layers for use in Security Exchange’s ShipAssure product, via the Google Maps API framework.

Talk about ups and downs. In 2009, the container shipping industry lost US$16 billion. In 2010, it made a profit of $20 billion, and last year was back in the red ink business with an $8 billion loss. This year? Break even is about the best prediction available even with a surge in freight rates as general rates increases (GRIs) imposed by the carriers in the first few months have largely stuck. By May, shipping lines on the Asia-Europe trade saw rates surge to 2010 levels with solid spot increases being reported on the transpacific.

An online shipping exchange being set up by two of the world's biggest oil firms, a leading agrifood multinational and top shipbroker will transform the way traditional shipping markets work, industry experts said. The company, LevelSeas.Com, being set up by oil majors BP Amoco and Shell International Trading and Shipping with food processor and distributor Cargill and shipbroker Clarksons will potentially control 10 percent of bulk commodity movements from day one. But it aims to be a neutral platform open to all sides of the industry. "This will act as a real catalyst for change in the industry - and change for the better. Nothing else offers a seamless service to take us from the start to the end of a voyage…

An online shipping exchange being set up by two of the world's biggest oil firms, a leading agrifood multinational and top shipbroker will transform the way traditional shipping markets work, industry experts said. The company, LevelSeas.com, being set up by oil majors BP Amoco and Shell International Trading and Shipping with food processor and distributor Cargill and shipbroker Clarksons, will potentially control 10 percent of bulk commodity movements right from the beginning. The independent Internet company will provide freight management services, online chartering and freight derivatives, across the $100 billion market in the global movement of wet and dry bulk commodities by sea, the four firms said.

Shipping finance specialist Tufton Oceanic is reportedly launching an independent web-based shipping chartering exchange with a group of e-commerce and investment companies. The exchange, to be called ShipDesk, aims to become the definitive independent chartering exchange, benefiting all market participants, a spokesperson said. ShipDesk, which will go live later this year, has been developed in conjunction with U.S.-based electronic market developer OptiMark Technologies, European e-business investment firm antfactory, and private equity group Whitney & Co. The site will provide a confidential exchange for wet and dry bulk commodity trade from shipment to voyage completion.

The Globe is reporting that the cargo ship bears the name Osama. It's been registered in Syria. And it's steaming toward Los Angeles. That's the mock scenario playing out on a bank of giant plasma screens lined up for a demo here at Raytheon Co.'s Naval Integration Center on Narragansett Bay. The vessel has been tagged as suspicious based on data culled from shipping records. Raytheon engineers are using software to track its course. And they're combing databases tracing its history, ownership, and sister ships heading for US waters. Athena is part of a larger push by Raytheon, the nation's fifth-largest military contractor, into homeland security.

reason that maritime - as usual - will be slow to catch the wave. A frantic dash to set up tanker trading and information websites is being touted as the end of the traditional shipping marketplace, but insiders say there will be no overnight revolution. Two oil majors last week joined forces with the biggest shipbroker and leading agribusiness trading house to set up an online shipping exchange which aimed to transform the $100 billion market in moving bulk commodities by sea. Other shipbrokers are now rushing to update their websites and a rash of dot.com shipping information ventures are also in the pipeline. But many in the industry say it is unlikely the web revolution will undermine the secretive tanker broking trade.