Friday, March 6, 2020

My my my...my Corona!

I'm back at work, and the month or so I haven't been blogging was... pretty ordinary. I worked, I went home, I'm back at work.

 Home was amazing- B family reunion, and my ONE surviving cousin on my side was there, too. We spent 4 days together down my way in S. FL. I hadn't seen half the fam since my mom passed away a few years ago. I think I can say with confidence that we'll be getting together more. We really do share the same humor for the most part, although I did tone it down a bit, as there were ladies present, so all was well.

     Flying back earlier this week, there were a few folks in surgical masks, dust masks, bandannas, etc over their faces.  Traveling has certainly been curtailed by the coronavirus. The Miracle Flight out of Palm Beach airport (30 people preboard in wheelchairs, 27 exit under their own power) which is completely full 9 times out of 10 had nobody in the middle seats, so it was VERY comfortable.

 Not being immunocompromised, I wasn't worried, and am not worried about my own health. I have several weeks' food stockpiled at home for the fam. Hopefully there will be minimal disruption in services and those among us who are at elevated risk take good care of themselves.

       Thus far there has been plenty of container ship traffic in Port Newark, NY/NJ's busiest port. I'm led to understand that there's a big dropoff in container ship sailings from China, so that will work its' way over here eventually. Have to see how that works out.

 I am tempted to be optimistic and dismissive of the claims of armageddon, but I am starting to think that the disruption of supplies will create a lot of headaches. China's main ports are reporting a 20% decline in year-over-year volume for the month of February, but we're talking about China, who are NOT famed for being honest even on good days and these do not appear to be good days. So who knows.

 We've swapped over on the HQ to handle exclusively low-sulfur fuel products in the face of the new global cap on sulfur content in fuels. With March 1 having passed, ships are not even allowed to carry high sulfur fuels aboard unless they have scrubbing systems aboard, and not a lot of ships have scrubbers. With skyrocketing demand for low-sulfur fuel, plus the cascade effect of having to make room for low-sulfur fuels in shoreside storage, this has caused a bit of a spike in high-sulfur fuels anyhow, so I suppose this was inevitable.  Between increased fuel costs and decreased container traffic, I expect we'll see some container ships laid up if things don't get resolved in China soon.

 I don't know if I'll be blogging more now that I've had a little break or not, but I'm open to the idea. Might be a nice way to pass the next month until I come home again.

4 comments:

Rob said...

I saw a short video from the port of Los Angeles, not a lot of containers there, it looks like the last boat from China has already docked. It's looking like there may be a shortage of flip-flops this year!


pjk said...

I, for one, always enjoy your perspective.

hjggg said...

I was hoping for a container ship update from you. West Coast ports are reporting laying off as much as 50% of the union port crews due to decreased imports from China and Asia.

Containers are coming in at less than 5k for the trip, when allowed. I don't closely follow contains so I don't know what the normal price is but the press is pushing it like it is the end of the fuckin world. It's all bullshit as I see it.

On another note, WTF is it about toilet paper? Is there a monumental shitstorm about to arrive? The friggin flu has killed 60,000 people in the USA since October and nobody bats an eye, we've had 14 Corona virus deaths and everybody losses their fuckin mind? The whole thing is a setup to keep the peeps fearful, imho. Pols love a fearful populace as it is easier to govern those who are afraid. Fuck em.

Welcome back aboard Sailor.

Jeff from Idaho

hjggg said...

I screwed up. I normally cite sources for my statistics and I failed to do so in my last comment.

Please include as you may the following source for my statistics stated in my comment.

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2020/03/05/coronavirus-strikes-la-long-beach-port-jobs-and-cargo-numbers/

Thanks,

Jeff in Idaho