Borderlands Mexico is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week in Borderlands Mexico: US takes 76% of vehicle exports as September shipments plunge; DSV expands US-Mexico freight operations with McAllen office; and Texas university seeks $772,700 for AI-powered Laredo freight project. US takes 76% of vehicle exports as September shipments plunge More than three-quarters of Mexico’s light-vehicle exports were destined for the U.S. during the first nine months of 2026, underscoring the importance of cross-border automotive t
Crude oil prices, which dipped on Tuesday, reversed their direction, with Brent ticking above $100 again earlier today following reports of fresh Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $101.49 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands for $90.14 per barrel, despite a statement from Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who said Tuesday the kingdom’s oil flows via the Rast-West pipeline had rebounded to 5.8 million barrels daily. The statement…
Iranian oil is disappearing from the market just as its biggest buyer returns for more. China’s recovering crude demand is colliding with the loss of a supplier that sustained its independent refiners through the crisis, forcing them to compete for increasingly expensive alternatives. The consequences reach beyond China: every replacement barrel tightens supplies for other buyers, while Tehran faces a growing incentive to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, which is now carrying an unexpectedly strong 13 million barrels a day (just 5 million below…
Oil prices pulled back on Tuesday, reversing recent gains as investors weighed signs of export recovery by Middle Eastern producers against uncertainty surrounding the fate of the Iran war. Brent crude for November delivery fell 1.5% to trade at $103.72 per barrel at 1.10 pm ET, while WTI crude for October delivery declined 2.2% to change hands at $90.62/bbl. Crude exports from the region climbed to 15.5 million barrels per day in September, good for more than 80% of prewar levels and the highest level since the conflict began seven months ago.…
The Chinese market remains the largest one in terms of seaborne crude oil imports, after the first eight months of 2026. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Banchero Costa said that “after a marginal decline in 2024, when global crude oil loadings decreased by -0.2% y-o-y, things picked up in 2025, with full-year volumes increasing ...
Bloomberg reports the Iran war's jet fuel shortage is spreading from Asia to Europe as Hormuz stays blocked, with record prices and cancelled flights. Alkagesta, a Bloomberg-cited supplier into Europe's NATO CEPS pipeline, is exposed to the same tightening barrels.
China’s diesel fuel and gasoline inventories are declining, which may eventually lead to the imposition of export curbs, Bloomberg has reported, citing recent fuel inventory data. Gasoline inventories at state-owned energy majors were down by 2.9% last week to their lowest level since 2022, according to Chinese commodity market research firm JLC International. Diesel inventories are sitting at the lowest in 15 months, booking a 2.4% dip last week, the publication noted. “With the domestic market tightening, we see an increasing risk…
Alkagesta chief executive Orkhan Rustamov tells Bloomberg that extra military-grade barrels injected at Rotterdam pushed civilian jet fuel out of the NATO Central Europe Pipeline System.
Rates for shipping containers from east Asia and China to the US were mostly higher this week while rates for liquid chemical tankers ex-US Gulf were mostly softer, all while schedule reliability is decreasing because of congestion at Asia ports. PORT CONGESTION Global container vessel schedule reliability dropped to 56.4% in July 2026, a decline ...
Ukraine’s top sanctions official says he remains optimistic about prospects for a sweeping Russia sanctions bill in the US Congress despite growing uncertainty over when the House of Representatives will take it up, as lawmakers face a sharply shortened legislative calendar ahead of the November elections. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions commissioner, spent this week in Washington meeting lawmakers and congressional staff as Kyiv presses Congress to advance the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia…
Pakistan’s five oil refineries are expected to sign agreements in early September for upgrades that are expected to unlock as much as $6 billion in investment in the country’s refining sector. Representatives of the five refineries, Pak Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO), Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), National Refinery Limited (NRL), Cnergyico, and Attock Refinery Limited (ARL), have met with Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum, Ali Pervaiz Malik, to discuss the so-called Refinery Upgradation Policy, local daily Business Recorder…
Spot rates in the US trucking sector rose sharply in the second quarter and are on course to climb further , with the looming peak season auguring more upward pressure, according to RXO. The transportation provider is advising shippers to secure capacity, which continues to shrink. The Curve, RXO’s proprietary truckload spot rate index, climbed to its highest level in more than four years, propelled by a 32.4% surge in pricing over ... The post ‘Secure capacity’ says RXO as it warns of further haulage rate rises appeared first on The Loadstar .
Quick recap: the freight-rate spike that produced two very different report cards at Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd is increasingly a story about who controls terminal and inland capacity, not who owns the most vessels – and nobody is making that case more directly right now than AD Ports. ZIM’s next move, meanwhile, has less to do with freight rates than with a decision sitting with Israeli regulators. My previous analysis already worked ... The post AD Ports the clear read-through as bottlenecks shift from ship to dock appeared first on The Loadstar .
Global container port congestion has climbed beyond the levels recorded during the Covid era, removing more than 4.3m teu of capacity from circulation and helping keep freight and charter rates elevated. Data from Linerlytica shows 4.3m teu is now waiting to berth at container ports worldwide, surpassing the previous absolute peak of 4m teu recorded …
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Global container port congestion has reached a new high as East Asia’s typhoon season continues to disrupt vessel schedules, with more than 4.3 million teu now waiting to berth. On Sunday, Typhoon Narra hit southern China, compounding cargo backlogs caused by typhoons Bavi, Noul, and Dolphin. And the situation is unlikely to be relieved any time soon, with Typhoon Saudel set to make landfall along the coast from central Zhejiang to central ... The post Global port congestion at new high as more typhoons hit China appeared first on The Loadstar .
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U.S. sanctions pressure on Iran intensifies, but Pakistani mediation hopes push Brent back to $89. US Blockade Leaves Iran’s Oil Trade on Borrowed Time - The announcement of the Trump administration’s ‘Economic D-Day’ sanctions on Iran coincides with an overall slump in Tehran’s crude exports, choked off by the US Navy’s maritime blockade in the Gulf of Oman. - Iran’s August crude exports have so far been minimal compared to the 2025 average of 1.7 million b/d, averaging only slightly around 0.3 million…
The International Maritime Organization is calling for urgent action against a resurgence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, where six merchant ships and more than 90 seafarers are now...
Freight broker RXO said Tuesday that its truckload spot rate index recorded its biggest sequential gain in five years during the second quarter. The dataset, which tracks linehaul rates excluding fuel surcharges, has continued to step higher in the third quarter. “The index has not experienced this level of rate inflation since pandemic-era surges, with the second quarter hitting both the highest year-over-year reading and largest sequential increase since the second quarter of 2021,” the report said. RXO’s ( NYSE: RXO ) Curve Report showed second-quarter spot rates were up 32.4% y/y, an accel
Why it matters: With trucks carrying more than half the value of U.S.-Canada freight, escalating tariffs threaten to disrupt cross-border volumes, manufacturing supply chains and carrier demand along major gateways such as Detroit, Port Huron and Buffalo. Canada announced retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on billions of dollars of U.S. goods Tuesday, escalating a trade dispute between the two countries after negotiations collapsed over the weekend. Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Ottawa will impose “dollar-for-dollar” counter-tariffs on about $27.6 billion worth of U.
California deputies recovered more than $150,000 in New Balance shoes after reports of people breaking into BNSF Railroad boxcars. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s Barstow Station announced the recovery Aug. 24. Authorities arrested Leonardo Martinez Navarre, 29, after he fled a traffic stop near Daggett. Daggett is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County, about 10 miles east of Barstow. Barstow sits in California’s Mojave Desert, along Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The call came at about 7:04 a.m. Monday near westbound Interstate 40 in Daggett.
Gatik announced Tuesday it raised $200 million in a Series D round led by Qatar Investment Authority and Koch Disruptive Technologies. Millennium Management, ARK Invest and Intact Private Capital also joined the round. The money will support expansion of Gatik’s driverless freight operations from the dozens of trucks today to thousands in the years ahead. Gatik has completed 85,000 fully driverless orders. The company reports more than $600 million in contracted revenue and 99% on-time delivery across operations in Texas, Arizona, Arkansas and Canada. “This round, led by some of the world’s le
U.S. refineries have been running at full speed for months to make up for lost fuel supply from the Middle East. Fuel exports from the United States have been breaking records. This may be about to change, and not because of the war. It is oil sands maintenance season in Canada. In September, Canadian crude oil production may drop by 300,000 barrels daily due to maintenance activities in the oil sands, Rystad Energy said this week, as quoted by Bloomberg. Usually, whenever such a seasonal disruption occurs, it gets offset with crude from storage.…
Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT), Saudi Arabia’s leading terminal operator, and CMA CGM Group, a global player in sea, land, air and logistics solutions, yesterday signed definitive agreements to jointly develop and operate Terminal 4 at Jeddah Islamic Port, in collaboration with Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani), marking one of the largest foreign direct investments in ...
ClassNK has launched ‘Survey Compass,’ an AI assistant that supports shipowners and ship management companies in their survey-related operations. Survey Compass is an AI assistant that responds in natural language to questions on classification survey matters faced by shipowners and ship management companies. Users can quickly confirm the information they need together with its supporting ...
IMO Secretary-General Mr. Arsenio Dominguez issued the following statement following reports of the SEAMULL being hijacked on 20 August 2026: “Shipping challenges are on the rise with the recent increase of piracy incidents in the Gulf of Aden. With the most recent highjack, a sixth vessel is being held by pirates and armed robbers in ...
The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk freight index, which monitors rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, advanced for a fourth consecutive session on Tuesday, rising about 1.5% to a fresh high since August 12 at 2,926 points. The capesize index, which typically transports 150,000-ton cargoes including iron ore and coal, also increased for a fourth ...
Key takeaways • The renewed US blockade is making the status quo progressively more expensive for Tehran. Pressure now extends from crude and petrochemical export revenues to production shut-ins, imports, aviation, gasoline balances, and ultimately government subsidies. Politically, the status quo also increasingly becomes hard to manage. • Tehran is confronted with a trilemma: endure, ...
U.S.-Canada trade negotiations collapsed just hours before a deadline to avert steep new tariffs, sending the two countries into an escalating trade dispute that could ripple through trucking, automotive manufacturing and cross-border supply chains. The United States imposed 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods beginning at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday after negotiators failed to reach an agreement Friday. The affected imports include products ranging from cement and dairy products to hockey sticks and other goods. Canada is the second-largest trading partner of the United States, be
NBC 15 reports: Backlash over data centers has become a central issue in the upcoming midterms as Americans on both sides of the aisle are becoming more resistant to having them built in their communities, pushing candidates to stake positions on how to handle them. As the artificial intelligence industry plans billions of dollars’ worth of investments to ramp up construction of data centers to power the technology, it is running into mounting resistance ... The post NBC 15: Fight over ‘data centers shifts into overdrive’ as midterms get closer appeared first on The Loadstar .
One of ocean shipping’s critical chokepoints just got a little tighter. The Panama Canal Authority in an advisory to shipping reduced daily vessel transits beginning in September and postponed previously announced draft increases for Neopanamax vessels. The measures reflect a deteriorating outlook linked to below-average rainfall and the prospect of a severe 2026–2027 El Niño weather event. The early warning indicates that the water supply in Lake Gatun supplying the canal’s lock system is again becoming a direct constraint on the reliability, cost and routing of cargo moving through U.S. East
Borderlands Mexico is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week in Borderlands Mexico: Criminal groups keep pressure on Mexican freight networks; Nuevo León posts $17B in IMMEX exports through May and Mitsubishi Logistics invests $40M in US warehouse expansion. Criminal groups keep pressure on Mexican freight networks Mexican authorities say cargo theft targeting trucking companies is declining nationwide, while Overhaul and recent industry warnings suggest organized criminal groups continue to keep pressure on freight oper
#fwtv_anrMYfetmOg .fwtv-panel{border:1px solid #d0d0d0;padding:18px;border-radius:6px;line-height:1.6}#fwtv_anrMYfetmOg .fwtv-panel p{margin:0 0 12px}#fwtv_anrMYfetmOg .fwtv-note{font-style:italic;color:#666;margin-top:16px;padding-top:12px;border-top:1px solid #e0e0e0} Ed Elkins, EVP & CCO at Norfolk Southern, reveals why Georgia and the strategic ‘Golden Triangle’ are pivotal for rail logistics and supply chain efficiency. Discover how infrastructure investments are shifting freight from highways to rails, driving massive growth and economic strength in the Eastern U.S. Elkins delves into At
