The Carriers get more friendly with shippers, but authorities play their own game
APL has trumped rival Maersk in the new effort by shipping lines, a.k.a the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement, to show more concern for their customers. The US division of NOL is passing the bunker fuel surcharge savings from slow steaming to shippers.
The surcharge for a standard 40-foot standard container shipped from Asia to the U.S. West Coast drops to $538 from $568. The surcharge for a standard 40-foot standard container shipped to the U.S. East Coast drops to $1,049 from $1,107. Under the new formula, every $20-per-ton change in fuel price will mean only be $14 for customers to the West Coast. And to the East Coast the $38 surcharge goes down to $30.
This has every connection to the manifesto on June 7 by Maersk's Elvind Kolding calling for carriers to take more care of their customers. Little practical evidence of this came out, except for Maersk imposing a "no show" fee, (which the carrier gave the Orwellian name of “load protection fee”, as the protection is for the line and not the customer) of $100 per dry container and $500 per reefer. Maersk will compensate customers for overbooking and rejecting cargo. No specific sum has been disclosed.
APL has taken concrete action and scored a PR coup at the same time.
Meanwhile, California's Air Resources Board has upped the stakes and set the cat among the pigeons on the trans-Pacific route by shoving out the threshold for low-sulfur fuel use from 24 to 40 nautical miles. Despite assertions to the contrary, this ruling is the result of US Navy pressure to get ships to stop going through the Point Mugu missile range near the Santa Barbara channel. With the 24-mile limit, ships were heading straight through the range, which was outside the limit. The numbers rose from two to more than 10 a day.
Maritime industry group, the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, has challenged the state's power in court, while other industry groups are also incensed at the state usurping world and federal power.
CARB figures on the damage done by bunker fuel usage have been proved to be humongously wrong, but the agency has refused to be put off.
A comment by board member Ron Roberts sums up the situation. "One of the hardest things about being on the board is separating fact from political fancy. I think politics have entered the picture too much," he has been quoted as saying.