Looking Back at the Top Logistics Stories of 2024: Hudson's Top 10 List!
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As 2024 draws to a close, HSL takes a look back at some of the top stories that unfolded this year in supply chain news. Among them:
1. Houthi Rebels Capitalize on Rich Red Sea RevenueStream
Yemen-based Houthi rebels with likely links to other terrorist organizations including Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab and Hezbollah are thought to be extracting billions of dollars from shipowners who are paying huge tolls for their ships' safe passage through the blockaded southern Red Sea.
A 537-page report compiled by a United Nations expert panel on Yemen reports that the Houthis are collecting up to $180 million a month from ship operators seeking to avoid the far longer and more expensive voyage round the Cape of Good Hope.
Read More at The Maritime Executive
2. Red Sea Tanker Reroutes Cause Fuel Burn
Tankers forced to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope because of Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacking merchant shipping in the Red Sea are consuming an additional 200,000 barrels a day of fuel oil — enough to increase the tanker industry’s annual emissions by 4.5 percent.
Many vessel operators continue to use the Red Sea route between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, as it is much shorter and usually less expensive. But ship managers recommend avoiding the risk altogether and switching to the long route around Africa’s southernmost tip.
Read More at The Maritime Executive
3. Forced and Child Labor Abuses Found in 75% of Lithium Battery Supply Chains
About three in four of the planet’s lithium-ion battery supplies are at risk of being banned in the U.S. and other western nations because of abuses of forced and child labor.
Most of the allegations of abuses involve companies in China that are mining and refining raw materials which end up in batteries around the world, particularly in northwest China where the battery, automotive and solar industry has already been hit with public allegations of widespread forced labor from journalists, government agencies, and non-profit organizations.
4. EU Passes Corporate Sustainability Rule
A new supply chain law, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), that affects EU member states and non-EU companies and parent companies alike which have an equivalent turnover within the EU, passed in July.
The law requires that companies develop, implement, and report on due diligence policies in relation to environmental impact such as emissions, deforestation, and water consumption as well as human rights including forced labor, worker exploitation and child labor. Companies found to be breaching the law could face fines equal to 5% of their global sales.
5. Whistleblower Reveals IHI Data Alterations
A whistleblower revealed that Japan’s IHI Power Systems Company, a leading manufacturer of engines used in marine and land applications including trains, had been altering fuel consumption data on its engines for decades.
The depth of the fraud was highlighted in a report that indicated more than half the engines the company shipped did not meet specifications. IHI shipped nearly 4,900 marine engines, of which 86% had altered data. The land-use segment is much smaller, involving 656 shipped units.
Read More at The Maritime Executive
6. Largest Bunkering Port is 1st to Go Fully Digital
All bunker suppliers in Singapore must move away from physical documents beginning in April 2025, when they will have to provide digital bunkering services and issue electronic bunker delivery notes as the default.
Officials say the move to digital bunkering — Singapore will be the first port to require it — will boost transparency and save up to 40,000 man-days a year in documentation exchanges among bunker suppliers, ship owners and port authorities.
Read More at The Business Times
7. WHO Declares Mpox Outbreak an Emergency
Confirmed cases of the infectious disease mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, in 15 African countries this year are nearly double the number of Mpox cases in all of 2023, the World Health Organization reported in August.
The WHO has deemed the outbreak of 2,030 confirmed cases in 2024 a public health emergency of international concern, or "an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk … through the international spread of disease and to potentially require acoordinated international response."
Skuld advises its members that crews on vessels calling African ports should avoid interacting with local fishermen or tradesmen approaching the crew and refrain from buying any meat from exotic or wild animals. In general, locals’ access to the vessel should be kept to the necessary minimum.
Read More on the Skuld website
8. Unmanned Overboard Rescue Vessel Unveiled
Scottish sea survival innovator Zelim has unveiled the world's first unmanned/manned remotely controlled person-in-water rescue vessel. Dubbed GUARDIAN, the aluminum-hulled vessel is 8.4 meters long and 2.5 meters wide.
With capacity for 11 survivors (nine if GUARDIAN is deployed with a two-person crew), the lightweight Next Generation Fast Rescue Craft (FRC) also benefits from AI-based person-in-water detection and alerting system.
More than 1,000 people fall overboard annually; about 40% of all such incidents result in fatality.
9. Sweden To Ban All Types of Scrubbers by 2029
Following Denmark’s ban on discharging scrubber water, Sweden has taken its first steps toward adopting strict measures against marine pollution. It is expected that the new Swedish ban on open loop scrubbers will take effect July 1, 2025, followed by a complete ban on all types of scrubbers beginning January 1, 2029.
These stricter measures should serve as an example for other coastal nations, particularly in the Scandinavian region, to follow suit in prioritizing the marine environment.
10. Striking Canadian Rail Workers Ordered to Return to Jobs
An Aug. 24 decision obliging more than 9,000 Canadian rail workers to stay on the job is a win for the railways and could impact bargaining in other federally regulated sectors such as aviation, the head of a Canadian rail workers' union told Reuters.
Paul Boucher, president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, also said the union would work with other labour groups as it mounts a legal challenge to a decision that halted work stoppages at the country's two largest railways and imposed arbitration.
"Any federally regulated company, it's a win for them at this point," Boucher told Reuters in his first interview since the Aug.22 lockout. "This is disastrous for labour, for workers."
BONUS! Bunker Supplier Banned in UAE Over HSFO Supply to Ship Without Scrubber
A bunker firm that allegedly supplied 700 mt of HSFO to a ship without a scrubber in the UAE has been banned by that country from trading bunkers and supplying fuel to ships in that country, the UAE's Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure announced in September.
"OCEANEXL FZC provided false information on the nature of this operation and claimed that it was a cargo ship-to-ship operation and not a bunker operation," the ministry said.
Other firms in the country also may be under investigation,a local source said.
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