A recap of 2016’s top stories

The transportation and logistics industry has experienced a notable year between Hanjin’s bankruptcy, the new verified gross mass regulation and the expanded Panama Canal.    2016 has been a momentous year for the logistics and transportation industry, given the consolidation and other historic happenings among the world’s top 20 liner carriers.
   Overall though, American Shipper’s top stories for the year have been on Hanjin’s bankruptcy, the new verified gross mass (VGM) regulation, and the Panama Canal expansion.
   Hanjin Shipping filing for court receivership in the third quarter of this year was by far the top news for the shipping industry in 2016. Hanjin’s bankruptcy was the biggest in the container shipping industry since the 1986 bankruptcy of U.S. Lines, but far more complex, due to its membership in the CKYHE Alliance. Although Hanjin originally wanted to “seek normalization through commencement of company reorganization,” its auditor, Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, recommended this month to a South Korean court that the carrier should be liquidated.
   In addition, shippers, carriers, forwarders, non-vessel-operating common carriers and terminals alike were all in desperation mode in the first of the year as the new VGM regulation approached, which took effect July 1. They were trying to quickly understand how to comply with an internationally developed container weight verification rule they knew little about, and which could apparently be implemented and enforced in different ways by different countries if they so chose.
   American Shipper studied the issue from every angle – from surveys to interviews to pouring through documents – in an effort to highlight what was clear about the container weight rule, what was unclear, and how the industry might be impacted by it.
   In the end, the VGM implementation went as smoothly as could be hoped for, thanks in part to the attention trade publications shone on the matter, but also due to the diligence of shipper groups and software providers in making the conveyance of the required information less burdensome, illustrating yet another case of the container shipping industry rising to the occasion at a critical time.
   Meanwhile, the expansion of the Panama Canal was another groundbreaking moment for the shipping industry in 2016.
   For years, ports up and down the U.S. East Coast have undergone significant upgrades in preparation for the waterway’s third set of locks, which can handle vessels carrying up to 13,000-14,000 TEUs.
   Prior to the new locks, which opened June 26, vessels up to around 5,000 TEUs could transit through the Panama Canal.