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Conflict drives up bunker prices, helping intra-Asia rates end six-week decline

Rates on intra-Asia trades have ended six weeks of decline, helped by port congestion in China and a rebound in bunker prices, with average prices up 1% week on week on 6 August, to $970 per 40ft Drewry said the ongoing US-Iran conflict pushed Shanghai-Nhava Sheva rates up 8% from 30 July, to $1,767 per 40ft, with Shanghai-Jebel Ali prices rising 7%, to $7,143. In contrast, rates from Shanghai to Laem Chabang fell 23%, to $687 per 40ft, and to Kaohsiung they were down 7%, to $1,333, supported by easing port congestion. While the peak season for China-Southeast Asia shipments has passed, typhoons Bavi, Noul and Dolphin have caused persistent vessel delays in eastern and southern China. In Shanghai, average vessel waiting times last week were 94.8 hours, up from 77 hours the previous week. At Laem Chabang they fell from 15.33 hours to 11.6 hours in Week 31, while at Kaohsiung, waiting times fell from 14.78 hours to 7.32 hours. Meanwhile, Singapore-based Pacific International Lines will strengthen its South-east Asia network in early September by joining the Indonesia-Thailand-Straits (ITS) service, operated by OOCL and Gold Star Line, connecting Thailand and Indonesian ports via the straits. PIL is replacing Yang Ming in the partnership and will deploy the 2,034 teu Kota Johan to replace the Taiwanese line's 1,805 teu YM Interaction on 4 September. The ITS will enhance PIL's feeder connection across Indonesia and Thailand, providing weekly links between key Thai gateways and Indonesian ports. The renewed hostilities in the Middle East have pushed up marine fuel prices again, causing shipping lines to re-introduce emergency bunker surcharges of $38 to $75 per teu. VLSFO prices now average $848 per tonne in Singapore, the world's largest bunkering port, up from $804 a fortnight ago.

DHL Express invests in China with expanded facility and new flight

DHL Express has expanded its presence in Shenzhen and added a new China-Southeast Asia-Europe flight as part of efforts to capitalise on fast-growing data centre and pharma demand. The expansion of the firm's Shenzhen "Super" Gateway facility at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport came at a cost of €177m and has tripled processing capacity to approximately 900 tons per day. The expanded facility will support cross-border trade, e-commerce shipments and time-definite international express services. Meanwhile, the express firm has also added a new dedicated air route with a widebody Boeing 767 freighter linking Shanghai, Bangkok, Bahrain and Brussels. DHL said that the new service launch comes as demand is growing among customers in sectors such as technology, industrial manufacturing, semiconductors, healthcare, data centre infrastructure and new energy, "many of which rely heavily on manufacturing and supplier networks in China and across Asia". DHL said the new service would also support its recently expanded Heavyweight Express offering that moves larger shipments through the DHL Express international time-definite network. The company said that while supply chains are becoming increasingly diversified, China remains an important hub for "manufacturing, sourcing, innovation and consumption, and continues to play a significant role in international trade and regional supply chains". DHL Express chief executive John Pearson said: "Global supply chains continue to adapt to changing economic conditions, geopolitical disruption and evolving customer requirements. "Our focus is on ensuring customers have the flexible, reliable and high-quality logistics networks they need to connect with suppliers, production locations and consumers around the world. "These investments enhance the connections between China and global markets and reinforce DHL's role as the logistics partner of choice for international e-commerce and fast-growing sectors such as data centre and semiconductor logistics, life sciences and healthcare and new energy."

If AI starts making the decisions, what happens to the TMS?

For more than twenty years, the transport management system has been at the heart of freight forwarding. Whether CargoWise, Magaya, Descartes, or another, the TMS is where operational decisions are made, shipments are managed, and data is stored. Winning the TMS battle has meant becoming the freight forwarder's operating system. But, as ever with tech, things change, not least with the onset of AI. As the industry moves beyond chatbots and document extraction towards AI that can book shipments, resolve exceptions, and make operational decisions, a more fundamental question is emerging: if AI decides what to do next, what exactly is left for the TMS? Wherever operational decisions are made will become the most valuable piece of software in the forwarding stack. If AI chooses the carrier, plans the routing, responds to disruption, and instructs other systems what to do, value may shift from the software that records transactions towards the software that makes decisions. And the industry is beginning to divide into competing camps. WiseTech Global has so far taken one path: rather than separating AI from the TMS, it has embedded AI capabilities throughout CargoWise, adding features ranging from document classification and compliance to workflow automation and AI Expert. CargoWise itself is becoming increasingly intelligent, rather than relying on a separate AI layer. But others see the future very differently. A new generation of technology companies argues that intelligence no longer needs to sit inside the transport management system at all. Project44, for example, believes the future lies in what it describes as an execution layer. Rather than replacing existing TMSs, Project44 is connecting them. Its platform links transport management systems, ERP software, carrier networks, and external data sources into a single logistics graph, allowing AI to orchestrate work across multiple systems. In that model, no single TMS needs to own every workflow. Instead, it becomes one connected component within a much larger software ecosystem. And there is another emerging philosophy: start-up 5U AI, which has recently raised $3.2m in pre-seed funding, has deliberately built its platform to work alongside transport management systems rather than replace them. CEO Yagiz Abik said replacing a TMS was "a two-year migration project", while the immediate opportunity lay in automating the work itself. "Our workers treat the TMS as the system of record, whichever one it is," he told The Loadstar. "We've integrated with systems most Silicon Valley companies have never heard of, because that's the reality of European freight." However, Mr Abik believes that balance will shift as AI takes on more operational work. "Value migrates to the execution layer," he said. "When AI does the work and captures not just the data but the reasoning behind it, the question of which database stores the record matters less than which system does the job and holds the intelligence." The view challenges one of the long-held assumptions of freight software. If AI becomes the primary interface through which operators quote shipments, respond to customers, and make operational decisions, the TMS could increasingly become the system that records and executes those decisions, rather than the place where competitive advantage is created. Meanwhile, FreightSuite has taken perhaps the boldest position of all. Rather than building AI on top of a TMS, it has created an AI-native platform from the ground up, arguing that legacy systems were never designed for autonomous operations. Robert Petti, founder of Prompt Global, believes the industry's real differentiator will not be whether AI sits inside or outside the TMS, but whether it has access to high-quality operational data, business context, and robust governance. In his view, companies risk becoming distracted by architecture when the harder challenge is giving AI the information it needs to make reliable decisions. That may prove to be the industry's biggest challenge. Few global freight forwarders operate a single technology platform. Most rely on combinations of transport management systems, customs software, warehouse management systems, finance applications, visibility providers. and customer portals. Whatever model ultimately prevails, AI will need to work across fragmented technology estates rather than inside a single application. Software vendors have competed for decades to become the freight forwarder's operating system - but the next decade will be all about who owns the intelligence.