How many coincidences a logistical nightmare is made of ?

"All a big coincidence, I am sure"

This belongs to what will be a series of articles covering a deeper, hidden trend around geopolitical and especially logistics and global supply chain, affecting what entails basically every facet of modern life.

The War that has ever been !

First a clarification on how or why sometimes I persist in specific research points. I am a “gut instinct” kind of person, and if you want an academic interpretation of gut instinct, it is akin to a biological supercomputer that can infer insights from massive amounts of unconnected data points, finding meaning in complexity that our brains can’t process. A hidden layer of what you could call “biological machine learning”.

Some of my breakthroughs in different fields came from gut instinct moments. Covid, other things. I decided to write my short story The Last Echo after dreaming of a complex algorithm that bridged Machine Learning with evolutionary algorithms, something that I hinted at early in the LLM craze and is now taken seriously by some of the leading AI labs in the world (Sakana AI and my favorite lab DeepSeek being the leading ones). This is to say, I trust my gut instinct and often will find a way to back that with real-world data.


For the last 18 months, I had a significant one of these. Someone, some group, “something” is trying very hard to replicate the 2020 non-linear dynamics, especially in regards to the global logistical side of it all — different events, different “dynamics” but similar end outcomes. Stretching the system to its maximum capacity.

While dozens of events could be brought to attention, no coincidence could explain more of what I am covertly implying here than China’s Ningbo Beilun port explosion.

In a moment global logistics find itself strained on land but especially its pillar, maritime, no event got more of my attention than the one above. A significant explosion, born from a couple of containers, of hazardous materials closed one of the world’s busiest and most important ports.

The shutdown couldn’t come at a worse time as record peak volumes for  North American imports are forecast for August, after an “early peak” in June as shippers rushed to get holiday merchandise ahead of expected supply chain disruptions in the fall.

As if the star aligned in a sordid way, another explosion and fire hit another port, this time Colombo in Sri Lanka. Explosions and fires in ships docked in ports are a big deal because any of these events cause ports to close and stop activities for a period of time, sometimes short, sometimes longer, thus adding to disruption. And the irony is that more events took place in just 1 week, and experts argue it is a “safety issue”.

It came at the same time Wallenius Wilhelmsen, a big logistics player, published this report.

Baltimore: Operations are back to normal and there are no longer any restrictions for booking cargo to Baltimore.

New York/Newark: The port is at full capacity due to construction work on the port authority's ramp expansion project. Exports of POV continue to be restricted. However, when these restrictions are lifted, capacity issues are expected to worsen.

Brunswick: Port and terminal congestion has seen some recent relief since the Port of Baltimore re-opening. This reduction in cargo has also allowed the Port to continue striping our terminal to increase efficiency significantly.

Charleston: Only European-bound vehicles will load out of Columbus Street. Columbus Street implementing infrastructure updates to mitigate flooding for upcoming hurricane season. Other vehicles will transition to HLT Terminal.

Galveston: The port is open and operational however, experiencing space congestions caused by lack of timely cargo pick-ups in conjunction with bundling of vessel calls.

Tacoma: The port is currently experiencing vessel congestion due to a significant increase in the influx of newly manufactured cars from Asia. Additionally, there is a shortage of railcars, which is further impacting our operations. As a result, we anticipate delays ranging from 1 to 21 days for certain vessels.

Port Hueneme: The port is facing congestion, which has raised the risk of delays. Vessels carrying OEM vehicles from Asia in particular are experiencing extended wait times, with delays potentially reaching up to seven days.

San Diego: High risk of vessel bunching-related delays up to 14 days.

Vancouver: Some of the Vessels carrying newly manufactured autos from Asia are experiencing delays of up to 10 days due to railcar shortages and vessel bunching.

Panama: Effective immediately, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) announces that the maximum authorized draft for vessels transiting the Neo-Panamax Locks is 14.94m (49.0 feet) TFW. The number of transits has increased, improving the situation and stabilizing our ocean product.

Mexico: The increase in car volume has caused congestion and delays in docking at the port of Lazaro.

Caldera, Costa Rica: Delays at Puerto Caldera have significantly decreased, but issues remain. Container vessels with designated berth windows are not adhering to their assigned times, docking ahead of those already waiting. This disrupts the scheduling system and creates unfair advantages. We are following up on a case-by-case basis each month to minimize waiting times.

The Red Sea situation remains hilariously funny, because some highly paid analysts screwed up in their Intelligence efforts for years, and forgot to add to the equation the laws that reign over unconventional warfare. Economics. As I pointed out twice in the last 6 months, it is more feasible to use cheap drones to drain costly munitions from your enemy. This week alone a Greek-flagged tanker - Sounion - was abandoned & may sink, and the French destroyer Chevalier Paul was attacked.

Source

The maritime logistical situation affects quite literally every single facet of modern life to a different degree, and mapping its impacts even in retrospect is hard, but mapping those “on the fly”, as they happen is quite the hurdle to take. Egypt is facing a gas shortage because of this ship displacement and thus is suffering from a fertilizer shortage, this will ripple as either the government bidding for fertilizer in the global market (prices going up for the entire year), or lower yields, both leading to higher food costs.

Poorer countries like Lybia, have fuel shortages because of tanker delays. And here is where things become rather interesting. The Argentinian government just quarantined a cargo ship over suspicion of a monkeypox case. The list of cascade effects followed by just one event is already impactful, but multiple events at distinct and well-known choke points ? The only reason the world is not facing a severe fuel shortage is both lower demand and the now infamous Russian shadow fleet (another problem in the making for the near future ).

Adding salt to injury, the entire global trucking market went through severe disruption and economic difficulties, adding to an already years-long truckers shortage, just look at Europe. In the rail department, well, this is where things go beyond coincidental. A few days ago an overpressure railcar exploded inside Evonik.

Evonik is a significant player in the chemical industry, it manufactures intermediate chemicals for the production of a myriad of other chemicals used in the agro, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemicals industries. This means it plays a critical role in the production of chemicals needed for modern life. And as a last-minute development and as if someone is laughing at everyone’s cost, a widespread Canadian railroad shutdown is imminent.

Canada’s two major freight railroads have shut their operations, according to management of the two companies, locking out 9,000 members of the Teamsters union who operate the trains and dealing a potential blow to both the Canadian and US economies.

Nearly a third of the freight handled by the two railroads — Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Southern (CPKC) — crosses the US-Canadian border, and the shutdown could disrupt operations in a number of US industries, including agriculture, autos, home building and energy, depending upon how long the shutdown lasts.

These events could not have occurred at a more propitious time if the goal was systemic, widespread disruption of a highly complex system, right before one of the most important American elections. Hybrid war isn’t helping too. Well… 2025 will shape up to be a singular year in history.

Land logistical disruption ? Check. Rail disruption ? Check. Maritime disruption ? Check. Now we just need to add, under everybody’s nose a critical chemical shortage at a global scale to set things up for a bang. So what does this mean in simple terms ?

Countries will get more antsy, when they get desperate they do stupid geopolitical movements, and things get costly. There are still buffers (imagine shock absorbers) in many, if not most industries in the world, but as the saying goes. Slowly, but surely… as the famous Game of Thrones character once said.

Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.

I need to write about some SARS-CoV-2 and other health-related topics, so I don’t know what will be published first. Covid/Health or Chemicals shortage article. I am going with the vibes right now.

Any and all support is appreciated right now, thank you !