Export Surge Causing Sea Container Shortage . . .

[TexasTimbers]

The company I use for international air freight also does alot of ocean freight business. If you are interested in the import/export market and want to read an interesting 5 minute article, I thought this one is worth sharing. For those of you interested in how the economy is going, import/export says alot about what may be coming.

I thought I would compare shipping a couple of crates via ocean freight to see how it compared to the air freight I have been using (and prefer). I only ship small amounts, usually one or two crates (8' x 3' x 2') at a time which are not suited for ocean freight like a container or half container but still, I figured I would see how it stacked up $wise.....it was only going to be about $80 cheaper per crate, and would take 2-3 weeks compared to what air freight takes which is 3 - 5 days.

My agent said it was because of the shortage in container space, and inland metroplexes like DFW area where I ship from, have got hit the hardest

He said they had an article about it on the website I should read (the one I linked). Anyone out there that ships internationally recently, have you had any trouble scheduling shipments due to a lack of conatiner space?

[Ironwood]

Good read, thanks. Scrap may begin to drop in price as wholesalers can't get it moving overseas quick enough or they have "greater risk" sitting on inventory and prices could fall as they are forced to "hold". Very interesting insight into a world I know nothing about.

Ironwood

[TexasTimbers]

I was interested to see if Cedarman or Ron W had the need recently to send anything overseas. I bet Jim King could give us some insight as to importing and the availability of containers in Peru.

[farmerdoug]

Since the shipping containers are mostly still owned by the Asian companies that made or used them, I think shippers are treader on water shipping them to other countries.  China has been shipping alot more to Europe since our dollar lost value.  This is making it hard to source containers here for shipping now.

[Ron Wenrich]

We sell our logs through a broker.  They arrange the shipping containers.  So, we haven't seen any problems getting them at this point. 

[jim king]

We have had no problems here yet but the Amazon is almost insignificant in the world lumber market and getting smaller every year and most goes out in bundles and not in containers.  We are one of only two companies that use containers .  We only have one ship every six weeks that comes here so we are not a real good gauge to go by.  The collapse of the dollar hopefully will help US exports.  The low dollar hurts everyone here also as we have a duel currency economy.  You can have your money in USD or Soles but they go up and down together.

On the other hand we cannot buy much of anything that does not come from China but that lands on the West coast in Lima and comes over the mountain by truck and then down the river to us by barge.  ALL CHINESE.  I understand the ports there are full.

[Part_Timer]

The only price I know for shipping container overseas is $6000 to ship to Liberia.  We are hoping to ship 3 this winter for a spring church raising.  So far getting containers here is not a problem.  I was told it was $1500 for a 40 footer.