Europe’s energy crisis is unleashing a global battle over liquefied natural-gas tankers. Rates to charter the specialized ships are jumping to record highs and the WSJ’s Georgi Kantchev and Joe Wallace report that the competition is eating up shipping capacity while higher transport costs are helping push gas prices to record highs in Europe and Asia. The tanker race is another sign of the reshuffling of the global energy map following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has intensified competition for tight energy supplies, reoriented commodity flows and fractured parts of the global oil-and-gas market. One expert says just one LNG tanker is available for charter for a single voyage in Asia two months or more from now, and none is available in the Atlantic. Traders are going on a buying spree, shelling out $24.1 billion on orders for new LNG tankers so far in 2022.

• Natural-gas prices are skyrocketing in Europe, spurred by worries over avaiability of supplies from Russia. (WSJ)
• Asian natural-gas importers are scouring markets early as they seek to stockpile LNG for the winter. (S&P Global)
• Earnings for very large crude carriers have been climbing since June on strong growth in vessel demand. (Splash 247)

The holiday shipping season is swinging into high gear, if parcel pricing charges are any guide. Amazon is joining the rate-setting preparations by adding revenue streams ahead of the holiday season, the WSJ’s Sebastian Herrera reports, as the e-commerce giant looks to counter its own rising logistics costs and recalibrate its business following a pandemic boom. Amazon would introduce a “holiday peak fulfillment fee” from Oct. 15 to Jan. 14 for third-party sellers using its shipping services. The fee bump is Amazon’s second this year, following a “fuel and inflation surcharge” that averaged 5% of fulfillment costs. The holiday charges are an entrenched feature of the season in a parcel sector that has seen package networks swamped by online order demand. FedEx is imposing a menu of surcharges across a similar time period while the U.S. Postal Service is targeting a longer stretch, from Oct. 2 to Jan. 22, 2023.

• Instacart’s revenue climbed 39% to the highest level in its history in the second quarter and orders expanded 25%. (WSJ)

Severe droughts from the farms of California to waterways in Europe and China are further snarling beleaguered supply chains and adding stresses to the global trade system. The summer’s dry, scorching weather is hurting industries for some of the world’s biggest economies, the WSJ’s Matthew Dalton, Jim Carlton and Sha Hua report, including river commerce, electricity generation, agriculture and manufacturing. Climate scientists say this year’s dry spells are partly because of the cyclical La Niña weather pattern, which has been amplified by global warming. The United Nations says the number of droughts worldwide has risen 29% since 2000. In the American West, a drought that began two decades ago now appears to be the worst in 1,200 years. Forecasters expect U.S. farmers to lose more than 40% of the cotton crop, while the Spanish olive-oil harvest is expected to fall by as much as a third.

Toyota’s chief rebuked its Hino Motor commercial truck unit over a scandal involving falsified fuel performance and emissions data that has led Hino to suspend most of its shipments in Japan. (WSJ)

Ford confirmed it is laying off roughly 3,000 white-collar and contract employees. (WSJ)

British Airways is cutting more than 10,000 flights through the rest of the summer and into the winter. (WSJ)

Beef prices in the U.S. are declining as supply-chain constraints are easing in the meat business. (WSJ)

Canada is urging farmers to reduce fertilizer emissions, triggering a backlash amid global food shortages. (WSJ)

China’s CATL is starting up a service in which drivers will be able to rent and swap out batteries under a subscription model. (Nikkei Asia)

Canada’s Neo Performance Metals bought mining rights for rare-earth metals in Greenland. (New York Times)

Ship scrapping volumes are at historically low levels, with no container ships sold into the recycling market so far this year. (TradeWinds)

Bimco says China’s oil imports from Russia rose more than 50% from April to May. (ShippingWatch)

The International Chamber of Shipping says piracy in the waters off Somalia​ is no longer a threat to global shipping. (Financial Times)

A court in Dubai fined five members of a container ship crew and handed down suspended jail sentences over a fire and explosion in boxes that had just been loaded. (Maritime Executive)

BNSF Railway will lift its embargo on California cargo on Sept. 4. (Progressive Railroading)

Truckload carrier Heartland Express will buy the CFI dry-van and refrigerated business owned by TFI International in a $525 million deal. (Dow Jones Newswires)

U.K. freight operator EV Cargo is considering a London stock offering of about $1.2 billion to raise money for acquisitions. (Motor Transport)

Gap opened an 850,000-square-foot distribution center in Longview, Texas. (Supply Chain Dive)

Industrial materials supplier Avient is selling its distribution business to an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital for $950 million. (Modern Distribution Management)

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

Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team: @PaulPage, @bylizyoung and @pdberger. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report on Twitter at @WSJLogistics.