Logistics

The U.S. didn’t import any Saudi crude the week of Dec. 28 for the first time in 35 years, a reversal from just months ago when the Kingdom threatened to upend the American energy industry by unleashing a tsunami of exports into a market decimated by the pandemic.

A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container carrier, is working at full capacity and can’t yet see a peak in freight rates that have already been propelled to record highs by pandemic consumer spending.

Amazon .com Inc. is buying 11 used Boeing 767-300 planes, the first time the online retail giant has purchased, rather than leased, aircraft for its fast-growing air cargo operation.

Cold-storage specialist Lineage Logistics is branching into rail.

A trade war with China and the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have U.S. companies starting to question a decades-old strategy of shifting manufacturing operations to low-cost labor markets in China and other Asian nations.

XPO Logistics has completed its acquisition of the majority of Swiss firm Kuehne + Nagel’s European logistics, the company announced Jan. 4.

The nation’s ports continued their breakneck pace in November as imported products arrived and unloaded at a record or near-record rate at facilities on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

U.S. railroads have completed installation of an automated crash-prevention system that covers 57,536 miles of freight and passenger tracks ahead of an end-of-year deadline that was previously extended, the Federal Railroad Administration announced Dec. 29.

U.S. railroads are back, with freight volume posting the first quarterly gain in two years.

The trucking industry stands poised for a solid start in 2021, building on an unprecedented 2020 during which the U.S. economy relied heavily on truckers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.