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Shipyards are Booked; Acting on Supply Chains; Desperately Seeking Materials

By Paul Page

 

The Hyundai Heavy shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. PHOTO: KIM HONG-JI/REUTERS

Supply-chain stresses are reaching the world’s biggest shipyards. Shipbuilders that were retrenching and consolidating barely more than a year ago are now flush with new orders, the WSJ Logistics Report’s Costas Paris writes, and some have even stopped giving quotes for new vessels because construction slots are booked for the next two years. Some are also looking to renegotiate existing purchases because the rising price of steel has sharply increased the cost of building a vessel. The strains are the latest result of upheaval that has raced across the world since the coronavirus pandemic knocked national economies back on their heels more than a year ago. The rising order tally at shipyards in South Korea and China is being driven mainly by container ships as Western retailers rush to restock inventories. That’s sending shipping rates soaring, pushing container line profits to record levels and turning around business for shipbuilders.

 
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Supply Chain Strategies

The Big Creek Lumber Mill in California. PHOTO: RACHEL BUJALSKI for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The White House is wading into questions over the cracks in U.S. supply chains that have widened over the past year. The Biden administration is creating a task force and taking steps aimed at bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., the WSJ’s Alex Leary reports, after a review highlighting longstanding underinvestment and policy shortfalls that created “fragile supply chains” across a range of industries. The effort was prompted by the sourcing, trade and transportation concerns that have grown more urgent over the past year. But the plan also suggests no quick fixes are coming for companies that have been beset by shortages of goods ranging from lumber to semiconductors. Some of the provisions call for more domestic production of fuel cells and chips, as well as raw materials like rare-earth minerals. But the more immediate impact may come from tougher trade enforcement and new financing programs for manufacturing investment.

 
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Quotable

“While amplified by the public-health and economic crisis, decades of underinvestment and public-policy choices led to fragile supply chains across a range of sectors and products.”

— A White House document summarizing findings on U.S. supply chains
 

Commodities

A copper refinery in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Russia. PHOTO: ANDREY RUDAKOV/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Commodities markets are testing some fundamental supply-and-demand principles. Languishing commodity prices led producers to slash capital spending on major resources by nearly half over the last decade. The WSJ’s Chuin-Wei Yap reports the pullback has sliced stocks of industrial metals to two-decade lows and reduced supplies across other commodities, leaving suppliers poorly positioned to meet booming demand in resurgent Western economies. The consequences of underdeveloped global resources now stoke worries among regulators and companies that producer price inflation will spill into consumer prices. Suppliers generally respond to rising prices by ramping up output, but experts say the costs of adding new lumber mills or iron ore miles are high and that new output may be years away. Rio Tinto has been trying to establish an iron mine in West Africa, for instance, and it still needs a 400-mile railway to move its metal to port.

 
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Number of the Day

11.1%

Growth in average revenue per hundredweight, a rough measure of pricing strength, excluding fuel surcharges at trucker Old Dominion Freight Line so far in the second quarter compared to the year-ago period.

 

In Other News

Available jobs in the U.S. climbed further above pre-pandemic levels last month following a record surge earlier in the spring. (WSJ)

Tesla executive Jerome Guillen, who oversaw the company’s heavy-duty trucking efforts since March, has left the company. (WSJ)

Tesla’s sales in China rebounded in May, almost doubling the level of sales in April. (WSJ)

Electric-pickup truck startup Lordstown Motors says it is running short of cash and has doubts about whether it can continue as a going concern. (WSJ)

Ferrari hired semiconductor executive Benedetto Vigna as its new chief executive as the car industry focuses on microchips and digital technologies. (WSJ)

Shipping executives say the backlogs at the Yantian port in South China threaten to ripple across supply chains around the world. (Lloyd’s List)

Truck maker Navistar International says its information systems suffered a cyberattack. (Reuters)

Several big apparel brands have increased their use of airfreight to get around bottlenecks in ocean going supply chains. (Supply Chain Dive)

U.S. Steel is selling its Transtar rail operating unit to Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors for $640 million. (MarketWatch)

Kroger began drone deliveries of groceries in southwestern Ohio. (Dayton Daily News)

Grocery chain Albertsons is investing in data science and artificial intelligence to improve profit margins on e-commerce sales. (Winsight Grocery Business)

Operators launched direct freight rail service between Shanxi in Northeast China and Paris. (Railfreight.com)

A new report says demand for warehouses larger than 1 million square feet is soaring in the U.K. (Lloyd’s Loading List) 

British freight forwarder and transport operator Xpediator is looking for acquisitions to expand its business. (The Loadstar)

Supply-chain management software company Overhaul raised $35 million in a funding round led by Macquarie Capital. (Austin American-Statesman)

Retail technology provider Lightspeed is acquiring e-commerce platform service provider Ecwid for $500 million and online catalog builder NuOrder for $425 million. (VentureBeat)

 

About Us

Paul Page is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Write to him at paul.page@wsj.com.

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @jensmithWSJ, @CostasParis. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on Twitter at @WSJLogistics.

 
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