FASA

The hull of the TS Taipei, which has been grounded off the coast of Keelung, Taiwan since March 10, cracked down the middle yesterday, spilling fuel and putting the containership at risk of sinking.

“You want the volume to come, you want big ships to come, but you just don’t have the infrastructure to handle them,” Seaspan Corp. Chief Executive Gerry Wang said of the larger vessels that will soon be able to transit the expanded Panama Canal.

The Chinese container line received a large handout to help upgrade vessels with anti-pollution technology, but has since routed the vessels to ports in other parts of the world instead, according to a report from the L.A. Times.

The French ocean carrier appears to be participating in a recent trend by lines to skirt canal fees by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.

However, freight rates are still struggling and, according to shipping research and consulting firm Drewry, although consolidation may be a route to survival for some carriers, it can also create challenges.

All 10 U.S. Customs and Border Protection Centers of Excellence are now fully staffed and operational to handle entry summary work for major industry sectors.

The chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is seeking answers to why the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget to dredge the Cuyahoga River Ship Channel for the Port of Cleveland was cut by more than a third.

The Port of Oakland’s total container volumes (both full and empties) stood at 188,139 TEUs for the month, a 54.2 percent increase from February 2015.

Technology provider project44, which aims to transition the freight industry from antiquated EDI communications to API, is providing a new connection that gives less-than-truckload carriers more flexibility in conveying transit times to customers.