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8:00 AM — 5:00 PM

Registration

Location: Saal 1-2 Foyer

8:00 — 8:45 AM

Welcome Coffee and Tea

Location: Saal 1-2 Foyer

8:45 — 9:00 AM

Welcome Remarks

Location: Saal 1-2

9:00 — 9:45 AM

Keynote Address

Location: Saal 1-2

There is very little predictable in global supply chains at the moment, with Europe’s shippers and their service providers having to navigate an environment governed increasingly by volatility in demand and pricing, disruptions from trade disputes, climate change, overcapacity, inland bottlenecks, digitalization, emissions targets, and the looming IMO 2020 low-sulfur regulations. In his keynote address, Marc Meier, managing partner and CEO of Hamburg-based Fr. Meyer’s Sohn, will address the growing complexity of global container transport that he believes presents an opportunity for forwarders, but only if they can provide added value to shippers in a more transparent and data-driven supply chain.

9:45 — 10:15 AM

The Economic Outlook:
What a European Slowdown Means for Freight Stakeholders

Location: Saal 1-2

Elevated uncertainty over the impact trade tariffs, falling manufacturing output, and the impact Brexit will have on Europe’s major economies is extending a loss of business confidence in the eurozone. That pessimism has been routinely picked up this year in surveys by JOC Events parent company IHS Markit, which reveal concerns over tariffs imposed by the US on some of its major trading partners, including Europe, and fears that the punitive trade measures could be extended. Threats of US tariffs on foreign-made cars is of special concern for Europe, the world’s largest car exporting region. Amid this uncertainty, IHS Markit Senior Principal Economist Diego Iscaro will review the economic trends and challenges affecting trade in this region and use the vast amount of data and analysis available to IHS Markit to outline what lies ahead.

10:15 — 10:45 AM

Networking Break

Location: Saal 1-2 Foyer

10:45 — 11:45 AM

Containerised Shipping Market:
Analysing the Outlook

Location: Saal 1-2

The US-driven trade war has added another element of volatility to the container shipping industry that is in a perennial struggle to balance capacity with demand. BIMCO believes weakness in the intra-Asia trade this year signals slowing export orders, with demand growth forecast to slow in the coming quarters. But not everyone shares this gloomy view. Leading the glass-half-full camp is Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen, who expects global container volume will grow in line with market expectations of 4 percent and be supported by rising rates. This positive view is supported by the IHS Markit Trends in the World Economy and Trade report that predicts overall container volume growth will accelerate from 4 percent in 2018 to 4.8 percent this year, and 5.1 percent in 2020. Peak season on both Asia-Europe and the trans-Pacific is starting off slowly, but as 2018 showed, even with sometimes significant increases in volume, without an accompanying rate rise there was no way to fully offset soaring bunker fuel prices. This session will examine the outlook for container shipping, its profitability, the capacity-demand balance, and the challenges specific to the different trade routes.

11:45 AM  — 12:30 PM

Asia-Europe:
Time to Re-examine Contracting?

Location: Saal 1-2

Shippers and forwarders on the Asia-Europe trade will put out their tenders for 2020 business in the fourth quarter but contracting on the trade may take a very different form next year. The IMO 2020 low-sulfur fuel requirement deadline of Jan. 1, 2020 has left shippers in a state of suspended animation, unsure of whether to enter into annual contracts with all-in rates, keep the contracts shorter and hope to ride out any initial fuel price volatility, or maybe even go for multi-year contracts with the bunker adjustment factor (BAF) surcharge running separately. Maybe there will be greater use of the spot market that will push up spot rates. But whichever way shippers turn in 2020, it appears their container transportation budgets will be under severe pressure. This session will analyze the outlook in this critical trade, and why beneficial cargo owners are all re-evaluating contract terms with their carriers.

12:30 — 1:30 PM

Networking Lunch

Location: Saal 1-2 Foyer

(Seating available in Saal 4-6, 7-9)

1:30  — 2:30 PM

IMO 2020: Price, the Final Low-Sulfur Frontier

Location: Saal 1-2

Concerns over the supply of low-sulfur fuel once carriers begin complying with the IMO 2020 mandate are easing, with carriers and the oil majors insisting there will be no shortage in the run-up to the Jan. 1 deadline. Great uncertainty remains, however, around the price of low-sulfur fuel, a crucial factor for shippers as it will have a direct bearing on the bunker adjustment factor (BAF) formulas and the surcharges they will have to pay. There are price estimates to be found — currently around $550 per ton — but those are speculative because there is no trading in low-sulfur fuel and therefore no benchmarks. So how will the price be determined? Will the price vary according to different types of low-sulfur fuel? What are the different fuel types within the low-sulfur segment? Should shippers prepare for a steep increase in their BAF surcharges? Should carriers hedge and lock in prices or take a chance on the floating market? Are carriers confident there will be no unexpected shortages? This panel will analyze these questions and more, as the deadline for implementation of IMO 2020 nears.

2:30 — 3:15 PM

EU Maritime Regulation – Are We On Course?

Location: Saal 1-2

Port reforms, the consortia block exemption (BER) for container shipping, consolidation and alliances, emissions targets — these are all major European regulatory issues that have major consequences for shippers and for the entire transport chain. The issues are also grist for the commentary mill of Olaf Merk, whose strong views on maritime regulation are regularly espoused in research reports and position papers as the ports and shipping head of the International Transport Forum, and on various social media platforms. His forthright positions can evoke a strong response. For instance, Merk believes shippers would be better served by a container shipping industry required to operate under the same competition laws that govern other sectors and not enjoy any block exemption. A report he authored on the BER earlier this year prompted the World Shipping Council to question his data and call for the report to be “disregarded in its entirety” by the EC in its evaluation of whether to renew the BER or allow it to lapse in April 2020. In this session, Merk will examine the European maritime regulatory environment and give his perspective on what it means for the container transport supply chain.

3:15  — 3:45 PM

Networking Break

Location: Saal 1-2 Foyer

3:45 — 4:30 PM

Smart Containers:
High Visibility on the High Seas

Location: Saal 1-2

Although not widely deployed yet outside the reefer space, smart containers are attracting interest and attention because of the real-time information they can provide and, importantly, for the information they generate that can feed into tools promoting predictive analytics and other data-based intelligence. Traxens, a leader in developing smart containers that has investment from Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM, says its very creation emerged from “the vision that the multimodal container industry could make huge gains in efficiency, service, and protection of the planet if every company and every person in the supply chain has the right information at the right time.” Traxens’ innovations focus on hardware to drive down the cost of deployment of container monitoring and software to foster scalable big data processing and secure partitioned distribution. But how much information on their containers do shippers and their forwarders really need? What are the cost implications for shippers of this box visibility, and should it be a value-added service provided by carriers? How far is shipping from an industry-wide deployment of smart dry containers?

4:30 — 5:30 PM

Concurrent Breakout Sessions

Port Community Systems:
Breaking Out of the Silo

Location: Saal 1-2

Technology is playing an indelible role in shaping port operations, in terms of the interface between shipping lines and container terminals, as well as how container terminals interface with the hinterlands beyond their gates. Emergent technologies tend to focus on different aspects of this chain, but collectively they could help ports become more efficient by better coordinating ship calls, optimizing quay and yard operations, and connecting truckers with the terminals at the right time. This session will explore how the patchwork quilt of solutions might come together to improve port fluidity for shippers, their third-party logistics providers, and carriers.

E-Commerce and the Ocean:
It's a Forecasting Thing

Location: Saal 7-9

During 2018, a PostNord survey found that 268 million European consumers made online purchases worth 198 billion euro, an increase of almost 10 percent over the previous year. More importantly for those involved in global trade, three out of four of those purchases were made from foreign markets. Although there is no reliable data on the total cargo volume generated by the cross-border movements of goods ordered online and imported into Europe, the fact that so much ordering is made online means retailers must keep searching for ways to shift their e-commerce business from traditional and expensive package delivery by air to more affordable ocean transport. With its long lead time, container shipping obviously does not have a role in any rapid replenishment function, but with such growth being generated by e-commerce, there are cost savings to be unlocked by more proactive BCOs that are improving their sales and demand forecasting and taking the liner shipping option.

5:30 — 7:00 PM

Networking Reception

Location: Saal 1-2 Foyer

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