Meanwhile, there’s still the Ports America deal to worry about...
Shipping prices didn’t just go up because of energy prices increases. Not many ocean going vessels run on Natural Gas and the price they pay for the fuel oil is tiny compared to the value of the products carried.
International shipping prices went nuts because of a lack of shipping containers.
Shipping containers were in short supply because of congestion in the ports.
Congestion in the ports was mostly caused by COVID related labor shortage
The labor shortages were the result of strict lockdown rules in Democrat states and because of independent truckers being PAID by the freaking government to stay home.
Before all this Covid crap, shipping containers routinely cycled between continents 9 or 10 times per year. With the covid congestion, this dropped to 3-4 times per year. So, BOOM! In a very short time period, we had a 60-70% reduction in the apparent # of containers.
It got ridiculous in mid-summer. You couldn’t find a container to come from Japan to the US for ANY price. We paid $1.5M for 30 containers! Things have calmed down quite a bit since then. But, we still don’t have enough truckers.
Business tv pundits are calling for $100/BL oil.by Memorial Day? Any takers?