NEOLINK Announcement – Shenzhen sent into weeklong lockdown due to rising COVID cases – 14.3.22
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NEOLINK Announcement – Shenzhen sent into weeklong lockdown due to rising COVID cases – 14.3.22
Monday 14th of March 2022
Dear Valued Clients,
As some of you may be aware China has placed close to 20 million residents in Shenzhen into lockdown for at least a week due to rising COVID cases.
All bus and subway systems have been shut down except for those that are providing “essential services” – employees have been told to work from home if they can.
Residents in the area have been barred from leaving Shenzhen, which will have nock on implications for inter provincial transport providers and will have a broader impact across the supply chain.
At this stage it is very early, but we do not have a clear picture of what will transpire at the Ports in Shenzhen (Yantian & Shekou), but inevitably we are anticipating further delays to not just cargo in these ports but for any vessels heading southbound from Northern/Central China.
The Local Government website in Shanghai is also announcing that cases are spreading across the province as well and may prompt a further lockdown in that region also.
Please see below articles of reference to share with your customers:
We strongly advise that all importers that have trade with China from the region communicate with their suppliers to understand the impact on their current operations, as well as the impact on any order dates.
NEOLINK will be communicating on a shipment-by-shipment basis to our customers as well and our team both in China, as well as here locally will be proactively engaging with your suppliers as well.
We will continue to keep you updated.
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
GPS Vessel Tracking Now Live on your NEOLINK shipments! – 4.3.22
Friday 4th of March 2022
Dear Valued Clients,
GPS Vessel Tracking is here! This is the first in a series of enhancements coming to the NEOLINK Logixboard Platform to provide the most accurate, up-to-date shipment information on your Sea Freight Shipments.
Please see below:
On the platform you will be able to now click on the live vessel information which will provide you with the last reported position of the vessel. As most of you know the ETA’s we are provided by the shipping line is one data set that since the outset of COVID has not been accurate as it was pre-covid – however this additional inclusion will provide our clients and our Customer Operations Team with a clear/concise source of information that will enable us to all be talking the same “shipping” language.
The vessel data will only appear on your shipment once the goods are confirmed on board and the vessel and departed – so all pre-shipment planning information will be within the Order Manager section of the platform which will remain the same.
At NEOLINK, we are incredibly excited to now be able to offer our Australian customers an industry first where you can find all these consolidated data sets in one place.
For customers that don’t yet have access to NEOLINK Logixboard; I strongly recommend giving it a trial as it is at no extra cost and something we provided free of charge.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Business Development Manager or Customer Operations contact for more information.
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
NEOLINK Announcement – Port of Brisbane Flood Update – 28.2.22
Monday 28th of February 2022
Dear Valued Clients,
Hope all is well, and you are having a good start to the week.
For all our customers, suppliers and their families based in Queensland and Northern NSW, we hope you stay safe during this challenging time.
Please find attached to this email an update from the Port of Brisbane’s Chief Financial Officer regarding current operations due to the floods.
In summary:
As most of you know; the port data we access is the most up to date and ready information we have on hand for berthing timings, as well as first free day – we will continue operate as best as we can using the most up to date info on hand.
We anticipate this will cause quite significant disruption to planned vessel berthing’s and your NEOLINK Customer Operations Coordinator will be monitoring the port of Brisbane terminal data closely in the coming days.
If you are concerned about any shipment, please feel free to contact any member of the team and they will be proactively reaching out in the coming day/s when changes occur.
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
PORT OF BRISBANE – FLOODS UPDATES – 28.2.22
Reasons and Benefits to arranging Cargo Insurance – 28.2.22
Monday 28th of February 2022
Dear Valued Clients,
Over the past several weeks there have been several industry events highlighting the importance of checking/updating your cargo insurance:
Given the current set of circumstances occurring in Europe over the current Ukraine crisis; it is critical you speak with your insurer or your NEOLINK Customer Operations Coordinator to understand your coverage.
Listed below are some vital reasons why importers and exporters should arrange cargo insurance on all your goods:
In the event something incurs outside of an importers/exporters control, cargo insurance can generally cover you for all of the liabilities or additional costs incurred – example NEOLINK Customer Case Study below:
CASE STUDY – UK FOOD IMPORT ON BOARD EVER GIVEN – SUEZ CANAL BLOCKAGE
On the 23rd of March 2021 the Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for 6 days with 20,000 TEU containers onboard, which was being leased to and managed by Evergreen Marin shipping.
Due to the blockade the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) estimated there was more than $900M USD in compensation required due to the blockage and seized by the court on the 13th of April 2021. SCA cut their claims down to $600M USD after the rejection of the previous claim by the ships owners and insurers was rejected, eventually settling for an undisclosed sum on the 7th of July 2021 and departing on the 12th of July for Rotterdam after a delay of more than 100 days.
Evergreen shipping passed/attempted to pass on all of the additional costs/compensation to their customers equally across the 20,000 TEU’s of which a number did not have insurance or refused to ultimately pay abandoning the goods to the shipping line. On board this vessel was 10 containers for one of NEOLINK’s customers that was fortunate enough to have cargo/marine insurance that covered for all costs incurred and after a 100 day delay received their goods for no additional cost except for standard charges due to their coverage and paying the excess on their insurance.
So what options do you have for arranging Cargo insurance?
If you are looking for an insurance provider that specialises in Marine/Insurance cargo to speak to directly about setting up your own policy, please let us know and we would be happy to recommend or refer you on.
If you have any questions relating to Cargo insurance, please speak directly with any of the NEOLINK team.
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
Purchase Orders for 2022 & Online Tracking Portal – 22.12.21
Wednesday 22nd of December 2021
Dear Valued Clients,
As we head into 2022; I think we can all agree that proactively engaging in the supply chain earlier for shipping has helped us best manage the risks of shipping in 2021.
Whilst it is not full proof and there are always challenges at origin, during transit, as well as here upon arrival – the results between those clients that do engage vs clients that provide orders reactively is dramatically different.
I strong advise we continue to be as proactive as well all can as we head into 2022 with the recent COVID outbreaks and Chinese New Year just around the corner.
So, what can you do to plan for 2022?
Chinese New Year is also very much around the corner (1/2/22) – we anticipate that factory workers will start to go on leave from the week commencing the 24th of January and will return the 2nd to 3rd week of February. Needless to say with the current delays to ensure goods get away before CNY we want to have containers packed the first week of January, anything after that we highly recommend you consider airfreight to ensure urgent goods with tight RIS (Required In Store) dates are met.
If you have any questions regarding Planning for 2022 or the Online Portal Access, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any member of the team.
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
NEOLINK Announcement – COVID 19 Outbreak in Zhejiang Province Adds Further Disruption to Ningbo Port – 20.12.21
Monday 20th of December 2021
Dear Valued Clients,
Most of you will be aware that over the past two weeks COVID outbreaks have been emerging in Zhejiang province.
During this time, we have had multiple factories/suppliers of our customers have outbreaks and close down, as well as some in Zhenhai be impacted from a lockdown at the beginning of December.
The impact of these outbreak has been felt throughout the supply chain:
The biggest issue we foresee in the coming weeks is another bottleneck appearing similar to what happened earlier on in the year that impacted all of China’s ports. We anticipate that over the course of the next week if the build-up occurs that shipping lines will start omitting the port entirely and as such will add further problems as we head into Chinese New Year.
Our team both here in Australia and in China are engaging continuously with the shipping lines to do our best to pre-empt any omissions, however these are typically made on the fly by the vessel captains which take time to report back. I also ask during this time you understand that our team do not get “official notices” from the shipping lines straight away when this occurs. We will always push for the official notices to assist with your customer communication, but we have noticed this can sometimes take weeks not days to receive.
If you have suppliers in the Zhejiang province with pending orders we are not aware of, I strongly advise you send over to our team as soon as possible, and we will work closely with you in the coming weeks to try to find a solution that suits your supply chain.
All of our team are working extremely hard going into Christmas/New Year with us only taking leave on public holidays to ensure we keep your supply chains moving. If you have concerns about existing or pending orders, please reach out to your NEOLINK Customer Operations contact and we will do everything we can to assist.
SOURCES:
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
NEOLINK Listed as One of Australia’s Fastest Growing Start-ups – AFR Fast Starters 2021
Monday 29th of November 2021
NEOLINK are today extremely proud to announce we have been listed on the Australian Financial Review’s 2021 Fast Starters List.
We would like to thank all of our employee’s, customers and suppliers that have played a key role in helping navigate the current global shipping climate. Without everyone’s support we would not have been able to make it on this list and we wanted to celebrate this success with you all.
NEOLINK debuted on the Fast Starters List in position #39 – please see the full list on the Australian Financial Reviews Site:
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
NEOLINK Announcement – Nationwide Port Strikes Perfectly Timed in the Build Up to Christmas – 27.9.21
Monday 27th of September 2021
Dear Valued Clients,
Some of you have proactively reached out to me this morning regarding mainstream news about nationwide port strikes.
Whilst we do not have all the details; we can confirm that the Maritime Union of Australia has issued 40 new industrial action notifications across a number of ports and terminals that will start to take affect from next month. Paul Zalai the Director and our industry representative for the Freight and Trade Alliance has been featured in this mornings Financial Times, as we anticipate this will have significant impacts nationwide.
As most of our clients are aware this, this adds to further issues the industry has faced in the past few months and with Christmas planning in full flight we anticipate this will have a disastrous impact on all supply chains. Whilst the details are limited at this moment in time and the impact to all specific terminals/vessels/deliveries is unknown, we all understand the broader implications this protected industrial action will have across the entire country.
I have attached to this email several articles and industry notices for you to provide to your teams, as well as your own customers.
Our Operations Team will be in touch with all our customers relating to specific impacts on each shipment when required.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any member of the team.
Best regards,
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
Blatantly aggressive strike action – FTA – 27.9.21
Nationwide Port Strikes Threaten Christmas – TWA – 27.9.21
Port strikes threaten to cripple Christmas – FT – 27.8.21
NEOLINK Announcement – Super Typhoon hits Shanghai – 14.9.21
Tuesday 14th of September 2021
Dear Valued Clients,
As some of you may be aware currently a super typhoon has been impacting the Zhejiang region in China the past 48 hours.
See news articles below:
Since the beginning of the week port operations, warehouses, container yards and flights have all been impacted across Shanghai, as well as Ningbo.
Flights and Vessels that were due in at the beginning of the week have been cancelled/delayed, which we believe will have an estimated 1-week delay on all shipments from the region.
This adds further problems to already existing issues incurred to the region in the past month since the Ningbo Port closure in the middle of August.
We anticipate this will further delay schedules not just from the region, but also the major Guangzhou ports due to vessels not being able to berth.
NEOLINK will be working with our customers in the coming days to understand the impact on all of our customers shipments.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any member of the team.
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team
NEOLINK Announcement – Do you import containers? Then you need to read this – New Charges being implemented by Australian Ports – 12.8.21
Thursday 12th of August 2021
Dear Valued Clients,
Some of you may be aware that yesterday evening news broke of a COVID case at Ningbo Port.
As a result of the infection, we have seen the second busiest port in China suspend operations adding further pressure on already further constrained supply chains.
NEOLINK has already been informed by one carrier that shipments arriving into Ningbo via Tianjin this week will be delayed up to 4 weeks now due to the suspension in operations.
For those who are not aware Ningbo (along with Shanghai) is a strategically important port as it connects the north to the south as vessels then call major ports in Guangzhou before heading southbound to Australia or onto EU/NA:
The impact as such will inevitably have a knock-on effect across all ports and even shipment modes as we start to already field enquiries for Air freights now from the region. All of this comes at a terrible time as factories go into final production schedules before we head into the Black Friday Holidays in November in China and supply chains are planning for end of year holidays across the globe.
We are taking a shipment-by-shipment approach for all of our customers and analysing each set of circumstances to ensure we are providing the best recommendations moving forwards. Switching shipments to other ports and other shipment modes are options but add further costs to already expensive supply chains. However, we anticipate most companies will be making this move as well and as such will have a knock on effect to other ports where there have already been existing delays. Any orders that you currently have in production with your suppliers we now anticipate will have some form of delay, regardless of where you import from China as a result.
As of yesterday evening their were 68 vessels anchored at Ningbo Zhoushan and Majishan/Shulanghu awaiting entry into the port – please see below:
We will be proactively reaching out to all of our customers that have orders in our system that may be impacted in the area, however the knock-on effect will also inevitably impact all importers buying from China in the coming weeks.
If there are any outstand PO’s you have placed with your factories that are not in our system, please ensure you get them over to us ASAP so we can start planning ahead of time and try to best manage your shipments.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any member of the NEOLINK Team.
Sources:
Cheers,
Best regards,
NEOLINK Marketing Team