Cloudleaf Inc., San Jose, California, and Eye-Seal, Stuart, Florida, have formed a strategic partnership.

According to an article by SalesTechStar, Cloudleaf provides a software as a service (SaaS) digital intelligence platform that leverages internet of things (IoT) and digital twin technologies to provide solutions that bring end-to-end supply chain visibility.

Eye-Seal provides devices for container shipping assets that allow the continuous capture of data, allowing EyeSeal to provide customers with integrated insurance, intervention and recovery services. 

The two companies are providing organizations the ability to capture data directly from cargo assets on the move. Cloudleaf’s intelligence platform captures Eye-Seal’s tamper-proof device data to provide customers with real-time alerts and information. In addition to this immediate visibility, SalesTechStar says the Cloudleaf platform also connects this information to other critical supply chain systems.

“With Eye-Seal, we created a solution to a problem we suffered first-hand,” Eye-Seal CEO Enrique Acosta tells SalesTechStar. “Our mission is to eliminate uncertainty from cargo transportation. Our devices keep a watchful eye on your cargo from the moment it is loaded all the way to its final delivery.”

“Supply chain disruption due to the pandemic and resource limitations in the supply chain sometimes start with something as simple as the shipment container, Cloudleaf’s Head of Partnerships Ken Carpenter tells SalesTechStar. “It’s location, safety and traceability in periods of heightened disruption become critical, especially in cases of insurance.”

Bipartisan legislation introduced to Congress earlier this week represents the first major update of federal regulations for the global ocean shipping industry since 1998 and would support American exports by establishing reciprocal trade opportunities to help reduce the United States’ longstanding trade imbalance with China and other countries, according to its sponsors.

The Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2021, sponsored by Reps. John Garamendi, a Democrat out of California, and Dusty Johnson, a Republican out of South Dakota, if enacted, would:

• establish reciprocal trade to promote U.S. exports as part of the Federal Maritime Commission’s (FMC) mission;
• require ocean carriers to adhere to minimum service standards that meet the public interest, reflecting best practices in the global shipping industry;
• require ocean carriers or marine terminal operators to certify that any late fees—known in maritime parlance as “detention and demurrage” charges—comply with federal regulations or face penalties;
• shift burden of proof regarding the reasonableness of “detention or demurrage” charges from the invoiced party to the ocean carrier or marine terminal operator;
• prohibit ocean carriers from declining opportunities for U.S. exports unreasonably, as determined by the FMC in new required rulemaking;
• require ocean common carriers to report to the FMC each calendar quarter on total import/export tonnage and twenty-foot equivalent units (loaded/empty) per vessel that makes port in the United States; and
• authorizes the FMC to self-initiate investigations of ocean common carrier’s business practices and apply enforcement measures, as appropriate.

A news release issued by Garamendi’s office notes that in late April 2020, the FMC announced “Fact Finding No. 29” to investigate congestion, bottlenecks and fees at our ports. In November 2020, the Commission expanded this investigation to include reports of ocean carriers declining to ship American exports.

July 20 of this year, the FMC launched a new audit program to assess ocean carriers’ compliance with federal regulations on detention and demurrage and increase the agency’s monitoring of the marketplace for ocean cargo services. This action underscores the need for legislation, according to the bill’s sponsors.

The legislation has been endorsed by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), International Paper, the American Trucking Associations (ATA), Intermodal Motor Carrier Conference and the Consumer Brands Association, as well as a number of agricultural product associations.

While the sponsors of the bill say it would help to create a level playing field, the government reforms would pitch the playing field in favor of shippers in commercial disputes, the World Shipping Council, which represents 90 percent of global container capacity, says.

A statement from the WSC reads in part: “If the government is going to step in, it must be to assure fairness for all parties, and that means that the law must spell out responsibilities and consequences for nonperformance by all parties. The legislation does not take that even-handed approach. Just because the market has temporarily turned under stress from unprecedented U.S. consumer and business import demand does not warrant legislatively creating a commercial playing field that is unlevel and which will persist for many years if enacted.”

The WSC contends that the issues with ocean shipping have arisen because of wider supply chain issues. “Every link in the supply chain—from marine terminals, to truckers, to rail cars and warehouses—is under tremendous strain. It is unrealistic, inequitable and unproductive to try to address these supply-chainwide challenges by regulating only one class of supply chain participants—ocean carriers.  It is doubtful that regulating all supply chain actors—ports, marine terminals, labor, truckers, railroads, warehouse operators—would have any discernible positive impact on the current supply chain challenges.”

The association says targeting ocean carriers “will not improve supply chain performance, and it risks undermining the regulatory and market structure that has served the nation’s international trade well for many decades. It is possible to make the situation worse, and this bill would do just that."

Johnson told American Shipper that while the top 10 ocean carriers controlled 12 percent of container shipping volume two decades ago, they now control 80 percent. “Clearly we’re dealing with a very different environment.”

He told the publication he is concerned about market concentration in the ocean carrier sector and the effect it can have on rates.

American Shipper quotes Johnson as saying, “I’m a believer in the free market, but the free market is about many buyers and many sellers, and when you have unreasonable amounts of concentration and merger activity, you give certain market participants asymmetrical power. That’s a market failure and it can at times be a reasonable place for regulation.”

Novelis Inc., an Atlanta-based producer and recycler of aluminum, has completed its $150 million investment to expand its rolling and recycling capacity at its plant in Pindamonhangaba, Brazil, by 100,000 metric tons each. Annual capacity at this rolling and recycling complex is expected to increase to about 680,000 metric tons for aluminum sheet and 490,000 metric tons for recycling.

Novelis says this additional capacity at the South American plant will enable the company to grow alongside its beverage packaging and specialty customers in the region. The company says the investment also includes the purchase of an additional 380,000 square meters of land for potential future expansion.

In addition to the new aluminum rolling and recycling capacity, the investment includes the establishment of another reliable water source for the plant and a new railway terminal. The company also has added 90 new permanent positions at the Pindamonhangaba plant as a result of the expansion, which Novelis says was completed on time and within budget.

According to a news release from Novelis, this additional recycling capacity is the company’s latest step in support of its sustainability goals to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2026 and to be net carbon neutral by 2050.

“Recycling and increasing the use of recycled content in our products is the cornerstone of Novelis’ sustainability journey,” says Steve Fisher, president and chief executive officer at Novelis Inc. “We will continue to identify and invest in projects like this expansion in Brazil that will move Novelis toward being a fully circular business.”

This marks Novelis’ second major investment in a decade in the Pindamonhangaba plant. Novelis says it received technical support for this investment from InvestSP, a São Paulo agency for promoting investments and competitiveness.

“This project reaffirms Novelis’ commitment to serve the growing South American market with high-quality, innovative, low-carbon, sustainable aluminum solutions,” says Francisco Pires, senior vice president of Novelis Inc. and president of Novelis South America.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) has announced that, following the results of a consultation period with its members, LME Official Prices (used as a contract benchmark) will be established in its London trading ring while Closing Prices (used to calculate margins by some users) will continue to be determined electronically.

The LME states, “This optimal structure caters for both smaller physical customers – who use Official Prices in their contracts and overall prefer these to be determined in the ring – as well as financial and larger physical users, who focus primarily on Closing Prices and generally favor electronically derived pricing.”

The LME consultation on a split pricing approach was launched in June following a discussion paper issued on the LME’s market structure, which included the decision to determine Closing Prices electronically on a permanent basis. The LME says it received 12 consultation responses, mostly from what it calls Category 1 ring-dealing members, that “showed broad support for the specific proposal of determining Official Prices in the ring” once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

“While fully acknowledging that many Category 1 members would have preferred Closing Prices to also return to ring-based price discovery, we’re pleased with the level of support shown for maintaining Official Prices in the Ring and look forward to welcoming members’ ring teams back in September,” states Matthew Chamberlain, LME CEO.

Chamberlain adds, “We believe this split pricing model is the best outcome for the market as a whole, allowing increased participation and transparency in the Closing Price process while enabling different user groups to access and take part in pricing in the way that best suits their business.”

One day after the LME’s Aug. 9 announcement, Reuters reported the Triland Metals subsidiary of Japan-based Mitsubishi would be ending its presence in the LME ring. That would leave just eight metals industry companies participating in ring trading, under a charter that states if the number of participants drops to six, telectronic methods may be used for all types of pricing.

The reopening of the ring in September will be welcomed in the short term by some traders, but a sense of the inevitability of electronic pricing also is a prevailing sentiment. “This is a kind of compromise,” states one trader of scrap exported from Europe, referring to the electronic-only option originally proposed by the LME.

He continues, “However, it does appear to indicate the eventual outcome will be the end of the ring, with one ring trader having already dropped out voluntarily.”

John Browning, who is based in Shanghai with BANDS Financial, wrote in June of this year, “I fear that the ring will open in September, but its foundations will have crumbled by Christmas. It is not wishful thinking that will keep the LME ring open, but that there is a profit creating rationale for its participants, and at the moment that is by no means clear.”

In his Aug. 11 email to clients, Browning adds relative to the Triland announcement, “No doubt the management at Triland has made a sober assessment of the profit creating rationale for its continued participation in the ring and found it wanting. However, the same calculation is available to the remaining eight, and the LME is no doubt taking the temperature as to their continued participation.”

The Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) hosted an online session with the LME’s Chamberlain in March of this year, and at that time the metals trading BIR members who participated expressed concern about the outsized influence of fund managers and speculators in an electronic-only pricing system.

Five months, later, the metals trader contacted by Recycling Today repeats the same sentiment, saying electronic pricing only “will lead to less trade influence on prices that are used to ‘price’ physical trades, and the market will be more influenced by algorithmic traders—not fundamentals—until the algorithmic traders move on to the next market to manipulate.”

Commodity exchange services around the world have moved to electronic pricing methods to attract more business from financial institutions and funds, with the LME seemingly being the last to maintain a trading floor for physical metal buyers and sellers.

If the LME ring winds down in late 2021 as predicted by Browning and feared by the trader, “I believe it will level the playing field for LME competitors, as the LME won’t be able to claim a differentiation from them,” states the trader.