Ups and Downs of Ocean Rates
2015 WILL LIKELY BE RECORDED AS THE MOST VOLATILE YEAR IN THE HISTORY OF CONTAINERIZED OCEAN SHIPPING.
During the peak of the West Coast ILWU/PMA labor dispute that was reached in February of 2015, backlogs and congestion reached from both shores of North America all the way back to the containers stacked up in Asia awaiting a slot on a vessel that had been long delayed by the gridlock on the West Coast and the sheer volume that was diverted and moving via East and Gulf Coast ports, container rates had skyrocketed to a level never seen before. Many desperate shippers were willing to pay almost any price to get their cargo moving.
