The Urethane Blog
Everchem Updates
VOLUME XXI
September 14, 2023
Everchem’s exclusive Closers Only Club is reserved for only the highest caliber brass-baller salesmen in the chemical industry. Watch the hype video and be introduced to the top of the league: — read more
July 15, 2021
Los Angeles port braces for Yantian catch-up, peak season combo
Port expects to handle record-shattering 10.5M TEUs of cargo this year
Greg Miller, Senior Editor Follow on Twitter Wednesday, July 14, 2021 4 minutes read
The Port of Los Angeles announced its best June numbers ever on Wednesday, capping off its best quarter ever. Volumes are even higher in July and the number of container ships at anchor in San Pedro Bay — the so-called “parking lot” — is on the rise yet again.
“Cargo continues to move at a record pace. There’s no lull in the action, no half-time intermissions,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.
Yantian fallout (temporarily) pares numbers
There may not have been a full-fledged half-time break, but there was a fleeting time-out from rising imports in June courtesy of COVID restrictions at the port of Yantian, China, which temporarily cut flows to California.
The Port of Los Angeles reported total June volume including loaded imports, loaded exports and empties of 876,430 twenty-foot equivalent units, down 13% from the all-time monthly high of 1 million TEUs in May. Last month’s imports came in at 476,763 TEUs, also down 13% from May.
This mirrors the pattern seen in Long Beach. Loaded import containers to Long Beach declined 20% in June versus May.
According to Seroka, “About a third of all vessel services that call here originate from the Guangdong Province [where the Yantian port is located] and vessel arrivals here slowed somewhat in June as the Guangdong Province operated at about 50% of normal ship departure capacity.”
The looming challenge for California’s ports is that all the cargo that didn’t come last month is now belatedly arriving. “The South China seaports resumed full operations late in the month of June, which means more ships are starting to head our way this month and into August,” Seroka noted.
July, August look ‘super-strong’
Not only must all the delayed Yantian cargo be handled, but the traditional peak season will simultaneously ramp up. “July and August look super-strong … and all signs point to a busy second half of 2021,” said Seroka.
“We’re now seeing seasonal items such as back-to-school, fall fashion and Halloween goods start to make their way in and we do expect some cargo owners to bring in year-end holiday products a little earlier than normal.”
The port unveiled a predictive tool on Wednesday called the Port of Los Angeles Horizon that uses algorithms to estimate future volumes.
Port of Los Angeles Horizon indicates total July volumes (imports, exports, empties) of between 950,000 and 1 million TEUs — flirting with the monthly record — and August volumes well above 900,000 TEUs. The predictive tool estimates that July imports will be 515,703 TEUs.
For full-year 2021, the port expects to handle around 10.5 million TEUs, 14% above the previous high-water mark reached in 2020.
Dwell time woes persist
Los Angeles is heading into the next phase of the surge amid ongoing hurdles to cargo flows. “We have to continue to squeeze out every ounce of efficiency,” Seroka emphasized. “Now all of our supply chain partners need to step up to further improve throughput and velocity.”
Container dwell time at terminals “continues to hover near its peak of five days,” he reported. “On-dock rail time is running at about 12 days, not far from its peak in the spring. And with warehouses filled to the rafters, street dwell times ran as high as eight days in June. The bottom line is that the continued surge has strained all nodes of the U.S. supply chain and we must change these trends.”
On a positive note, only half of ships arriving in Los Angeles went straight to anchor last month, “down significantly from 90% of ships going straight to the parking lot in February,” said Seroka, adding, “It was the lowest percentage since last October, when ships first started heading to anchor.” The average wait time at anchor fell to five days in June, down from a peak of eight days in March.
But the number of ships at anchor has been rising again since late June. “We’re seeing a few more ships at anchor now, likely tied to the additional vessels that started coming once folks got healthy in Yantian and other ports in Guangdong Province,” said Seroka.
According to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California, the total number of container ships in the port complex (at berths in Los Angeles and Long Beach as well as at anchor in San Pedro Bay) rose back to 49 on Monday. The number of ships at anchor rose to 20. These are double the number of total ships in the port complex and at anchor in the third week of June, when calls were being curbed by the Yantian fallout.
Import demand signals look strong
The anchorage numbers could continue to climb. Vessel tracking data from MarineTraffic shows a caravan of at least three dozen container ships currently en route from China to the U.S.
Meanwhile, the FreightWaves SONAR proprietary index of cargo bookings for Chinese goods bound for the U.S. remains near its high in mid-July, implying continued high import volumes into next month.
It has been widely predicted that Americans will reduce their goods consumption as more are vaccinated and spend more on services. It hasn’t happened yet. The retail inventory-to-sales ratio (excluding vehicles and auto parts) remains near its all-time low despite higher non-goods spending.
“It continues to be clear that U.S. consumer spending remains strong,” affirmed Seroka. “Even with a return to service-sector spending on travel, restaurants and ball games, retail sales and e-commerce remain robust.”
July 15, 2021
Los Angeles port braces for Yantian catch-up, peak season combo
Port expects to handle record-shattering 10.5M TEUs of cargo this year
Greg Miller, Senior Editor Follow on Twitter Wednesday, July 14, 2021 4 minutes read
The Port of Los Angeles announced its best June numbers ever on Wednesday, capping off its best quarter ever. Volumes are even higher in July and the number of container ships at anchor in San Pedro Bay — the so-called “parking lot” — is on the rise yet again.
“Cargo continues to move at a record pace. There’s no lull in the action, no half-time intermissions,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.
Yantian fallout (temporarily) pares numbers
There may not have been a full-fledged half-time break, but there was a fleeting time-out from rising imports in June courtesy of COVID restrictions at the port of Yantian, China, which temporarily cut flows to California.
The Port of Los Angeles reported total June volume including loaded imports, loaded exports and empties of 876,430 twenty-foot equivalent units, down 13% from the all-time monthly high of 1 million TEUs in May. Last month’s imports came in at 476,763 TEUs, also down 13% from May.
This mirrors the pattern seen in Long Beach. Loaded import containers to Long Beach declined 20% in June versus May.
According to Seroka, “About a third of all vessel services that call here originate from the Guangdong Province [where the Yantian port is located] and vessel arrivals here slowed somewhat in June as the Guangdong Province operated at about 50% of normal ship departure capacity.”
The looming challenge for California’s ports is that all the cargo that didn’t come last month is now belatedly arriving. “The South China seaports resumed full operations late in the month of June, which means more ships are starting to head our way this month and into August,” Seroka noted.
July, August look ‘super-strong’
Not only must all the delayed Yantian cargo be handled, but the traditional peak season will simultaneously ramp up. “July and August look super-strong … and all signs point to a busy second half of 2021,” said Seroka.
“We’re now seeing seasonal items such as back-to-school, fall fashion and Halloween goods start to make their way in and we do expect some cargo owners to bring in year-end holiday products a little earlier than normal.”
The port unveiled a predictive tool on Wednesday called the Port of Los Angeles Horizon that uses algorithms to estimate future volumes.
Port of Los Angeles Horizon indicates total July volumes (imports, exports, empties) of between 950,000 and 1 million TEUs — flirting with the monthly record — and August volumes well above 900,000 TEUs. The predictive tool estimates that July imports will be 515,703 TEUs.
For full-year 2021, the port expects to handle around 10.5 million TEUs, 14% above the previous high-water mark reached in 2020.
Dwell time woes persist
Los Angeles is heading into the next phase of the surge amid ongoing hurdles to cargo flows. “We have to continue to squeeze out every ounce of efficiency,” Seroka emphasized. “Now all of our supply chain partners need to step up to further improve throughput and velocity.”
Container dwell time at terminals “continues to hover near its peak of five days,” he reported. “On-dock rail time is running at about 12 days, not far from its peak in the spring. And with warehouses filled to the rafters, street dwell times ran as high as eight days in June. The bottom line is that the continued surge has strained all nodes of the U.S. supply chain and we must change these trends.”
On a positive note, only half of ships arriving in Los Angeles went straight to anchor last month, “down significantly from 90% of ships going straight to the parking lot in February,” said Seroka, adding, “It was the lowest percentage since last October, when ships first started heading to anchor.” The average wait time at anchor fell to five days in June, down from a peak of eight days in March.
But the number of ships at anchor has been rising again since late June. “We’re seeing a few more ships at anchor now, likely tied to the additional vessels that started coming once folks got healthy in Yantian and other ports in Guangdong Province,” said Seroka.
According to data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California, the total number of container ships in the port complex (at berths in Los Angeles and Long Beach as well as at anchor in San Pedro Bay) rose back to 49 on Monday. The number of ships at anchor rose to 20. These are double the number of total ships in the port complex and at anchor in the third week of June, when calls were being curbed by the Yantian fallout.
Import demand signals look strong
The anchorage numbers could continue to climb. Vessel tracking data from MarineTraffic shows a caravan of at least three dozen container ships currently en route from China to the U.S.
Meanwhile, the FreightWaves SONAR proprietary index of cargo bookings for Chinese goods bound for the U.S. remains near its high in mid-July, implying continued high import volumes into next month.
It has been widely predicted that Americans will reduce their goods consumption as more are vaccinated and spend more on services. It hasn’t happened yet. The retail inventory-to-sales ratio (excluding vehicles and auto parts) remains near its all-time low despite higher non-goods spending.
“It continues to be clear that U.S. consumer spending remains strong,” affirmed Seroka. “Even with a return to service-sector spending on travel, restaurants and ball games, retail sales and e-commerce remain robust.”
July 15, 2021
Casper and Bed Bath & Beyond Announce National Partnership Bringing Together the Experts in Sleep
Bed Bath & Beyond’s Redesigned and Soon-to-Reopen Flagship Store in NYC to Include a One-of-a-Kind Branded Shop by Casper
July 15, 2021 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
UNION, N.J. & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Casper Sleep Inc. (“Casper”) (NYSE: CSPR) and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) today announced a new national partnership that brings Casper’s award-winning suite of sleep offerings to Bed Bath & Beyond® customers through the Bed Bath & Beyond website and mobile app, and in select Bed Bath & Beyond stores. As part of the partnership, Casper will open its first, one-of-a-kind branded shop-in shop at Bed Bath & Beyond’s newly designed flagship store in New York City, which is set to reopen on July 22 after undergoing a substantial renovation to modernize the shopping experience for customers.
“We are thrilled to partner with Bed Bath & Beyond, a beloved brand centered around customer experience and quality home products, as they expand their sleep offerings”Tweet this
Casper will create immersive in-store shopping experiences of its award-winning suite of sleep offerings to Bed Bath & Beyond customers, including the Casper Cooling Collection™ – a new line of innovative cooling products developed with the brand’s most technologically-advanced solutions to minimize nighttime overheating and help sleepers love their tomorrow. In addition to the flagship store located at 620 6th Avenue in New York City, Bed Bath & Beyond’s store in the city’s Tribeca neighborhood and in Bridgewater, NJ, allow customers to experience Casper in-person. Casper products will become available at additional Bed Bath & Beyond locations across the U.S. in the coming months. In addition to in-store purchasing, Casper products are eligible for Buy Online & Pickup In Store or home delivery, making it easy for Bed Bath & Beyond customers to get their items home.
“We are pleased to strengthen our authority in the sleep category by forging this strategic partnership with Casper to make its exceptional and innovative suite of sleep solutions available to our customers,” said Joe Hartsig, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer of Bed Bath & Beyond, and President of Harmon Stores. “Casper is an ideal complement to our bedding collection, which now feature high-quality and affordable items from our NestwellTM, Wild SageTM and Simply EssentialTM line of Owned Brands. We’re proud that Casper’s first shop-in-shop will be inside our flagship store, and look forward to together serving New Yorkers and all omni-channel customers.”
“We are thrilled to partner with Bed Bath & Beyond, a beloved brand centered around customer experience and quality home products, as they expand their sleep offerings,” said Emilie Arel, President and Chief Commercial Officer at Casper. “It’s an honor to bring the unique Casper shopping experience and latest sleep solutions with Snow Technology to a legacy retailer that shares our mission of helping millions of people achieve a more comfortable night’s sleep, and we’re excited for the significant opportunities this partnership will create.”
Just as Bed Bath & Beyond continues to transform its offerings in the bed category — including through recently launched Owned Brands such as Nestwell, Wild Sage and Simply Essential – this partnership allows Casper to extend its commitment to delivering high quality, innovative, and expertly-designed products that meet growing customer trends. The Casper full product assortment features top-rated mattresses and award-winning sleep accessories, including the Casper Original Mattress, Casper Nova® Hybrid and Casper Wave Hybrid Mattresses with Snow Technology, Original Pillow, Hyperlite™ Sheets, Glow Light, and more.
According to Bed Bath & Beyond’s recent “The Way We Nest” study, approximately 80% of Americans surveyed say their bed is their happy place and 76% view the bedroom as their sanctuary. To help customers find the perfect bed linens for their sleep and nesting preferences, Bed Bath & Beyond customers can utilize the “Nestwell to Rest Well GuideTM.” The interactive guide also includes design tips for styling a bed by interior designers at Decorist, as well as advice from renowned sleep wellness expert, Dr. Shelby Harris.
Casper’s footprint continues to grow with leading retailers, in addition to its e-commerce platform, and now includes more than 70 Casper retail store locations. The brand remains focused on increasing accessibility for consumers to purchase wherever they prefer to shop.
About Casper
Casper (NYSE: CSPR) believes everyone should sleep better. The Sleep Company has a full portfolio of obsessively engineered sleep products—including mattresses, pillows, bedding, and furniture—designed in-house by the Company’s award-winning R&D team at Casper Labs. In addition to its e-commerce business, Casper owns and operates Sleep Shops across North America and its products are available at a growing list of retailers.
About Bed Bath & Beyond
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) is an omnichannel retailer that makes it easy for our customers to feel at home. The Company sells a wide assortment of merchandise in the Home, Baby, Beauty and Wellness markets. Additionally, the Company is a partner in a joint venture which operates retail stores in Mexico under the name Bed Bath & Beyond.
Bed Bath & Beyond operates websites at bedbathandbeyond.com, bedbathandbeyond.ca, buybuybaby.com, buybuybaby.ca, facevalues.com and decorist.com
July 15, 2021
Casper and Bed Bath & Beyond Announce National Partnership Bringing Together the Experts in Sleep
Bed Bath & Beyond’s Redesigned and Soon-to-Reopen Flagship Store in NYC to Include a One-of-a-Kind Branded Shop by Casper
July 15, 2021 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
UNION, N.J. & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Casper Sleep Inc. (“Casper”) (NYSE: CSPR) and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) today announced a new national partnership that brings Casper’s award-winning suite of sleep offerings to Bed Bath & Beyond® customers through the Bed Bath & Beyond website and mobile app, and in select Bed Bath & Beyond stores. As part of the partnership, Casper will open its first, one-of-a-kind branded shop-in shop at Bed Bath & Beyond’s newly designed flagship store in New York City, which is set to reopen on July 22 after undergoing a substantial renovation to modernize the shopping experience for customers.
“We are thrilled to partner with Bed Bath & Beyond, a beloved brand centered around customer experience and quality home products, as they expand their sleep offerings”Tweet this
Casper will create immersive in-store shopping experiences of its award-winning suite of sleep offerings to Bed Bath & Beyond customers, including the Casper Cooling Collection™ – a new line of innovative cooling products developed with the brand’s most technologically-advanced solutions to minimize nighttime overheating and help sleepers love their tomorrow. In addition to the flagship store located at 620 6th Avenue in New York City, Bed Bath & Beyond’s store in the city’s Tribeca neighborhood and in Bridgewater, NJ, allow customers to experience Casper in-person. Casper products will become available at additional Bed Bath & Beyond locations across the U.S. in the coming months. In addition to in-store purchasing, Casper products are eligible for Buy Online & Pickup In Store or home delivery, making it easy for Bed Bath & Beyond customers to get their items home.
“We are pleased to strengthen our authority in the sleep category by forging this strategic partnership with Casper to make its exceptional and innovative suite of sleep solutions available to our customers,” said Joe Hartsig, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer of Bed Bath & Beyond, and President of Harmon Stores. “Casper is an ideal complement to our bedding collection, which now feature high-quality and affordable items from our NestwellTM, Wild SageTM and Simply EssentialTM line of Owned Brands. We’re proud that Casper’s first shop-in-shop will be inside our flagship store, and look forward to together serving New Yorkers and all omni-channel customers.”
“We are thrilled to partner with Bed Bath & Beyond, a beloved brand centered around customer experience and quality home products, as they expand their sleep offerings,” said Emilie Arel, President and Chief Commercial Officer at Casper. “It’s an honor to bring the unique Casper shopping experience and latest sleep solutions with Snow Technology to a legacy retailer that shares our mission of helping millions of people achieve a more comfortable night’s sleep, and we’re excited for the significant opportunities this partnership will create.”
Just as Bed Bath & Beyond continues to transform its offerings in the bed category — including through recently launched Owned Brands such as Nestwell, Wild Sage and Simply Essential – this partnership allows Casper to extend its commitment to delivering high quality, innovative, and expertly-designed products that meet growing customer trends. The Casper full product assortment features top-rated mattresses and award-winning sleep accessories, including the Casper Original Mattress, Casper Nova® Hybrid and Casper Wave Hybrid Mattresses with Snow Technology, Original Pillow, Hyperlite™ Sheets, Glow Light, and more.
According to Bed Bath & Beyond’s recent “The Way We Nest” study, approximately 80% of Americans surveyed say their bed is their happy place and 76% view the bedroom as their sanctuary. To help customers find the perfect bed linens for their sleep and nesting preferences, Bed Bath & Beyond customers can utilize the “Nestwell to Rest Well GuideTM.” The interactive guide also includes design tips for styling a bed by interior designers at Decorist, as well as advice from renowned sleep wellness expert, Dr. Shelby Harris.
Casper’s footprint continues to grow with leading retailers, in addition to its e-commerce platform, and now includes more than 70 Casper retail store locations. The brand remains focused on increasing accessibility for consumers to purchase wherever they prefer to shop.
About Casper
Casper (NYSE: CSPR) believes everyone should sleep better. The Sleep Company has a full portfolio of obsessively engineered sleep products—including mattresses, pillows, bedding, and furniture—designed in-house by the Company’s award-winning R&D team at Casper Labs. In addition to its e-commerce business, Casper owns and operates Sleep Shops across North America and its products are available at a growing list of retailers.
About Bed Bath & Beyond
Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) is an omnichannel retailer that makes it easy for our customers to feel at home. The Company sells a wide assortment of merchandise in the Home, Baby, Beauty and Wellness markets. Additionally, the Company is a partner in a joint venture which operates retail stores in Mexico under the name Bed Bath & Beyond.
Bed Bath & Beyond operates websites at bedbathandbeyond.com, bedbathandbeyond.ca, buybuybaby.com, buybuybaby.ca, facevalues.com and decorist.com
July 13, 2021
“I’m Not Seeing This As Transitory”: Paint Supplier PPG Raises Prices For Second Time This Year Due To “Obvious” Inflation
by Tyler DurdenMonday, Jul 12, 2021 – 07:00 PM
Paint supplier PPG knows that inflation isn’t just “transitory”.
In fact, the company, who supplies to major manufacturers like Ford and Boeing, is raising the prices of its paint and coatings solely as a result of “inflation in raw material and logistics costs”, according to a new Bloomberg article.
Chief Executive Officer Michael McGarry made sure PPG was one of the first to raise prices earlier this year, as the company anticipated an inflationary environment. Now, they’re raising prices again.
McGarry said: “What we’re obviously studying now is the need to be out with a third set of price increases. Inflation is across-the-board, it’s obvious and customers don’t have a lot of good ways to counter the argument that we need to have price relief.”
And it isn’t like PPG is just a localized business experiencing a one-off in costs: the company is in more than 70 countries and is still “feeling the pinch from the prices of oil, freight and distribution going up and raw materials running scarce”.
“I’m not seeing this as transitory. This work-from-home phenomenon is going to lead to additional wage inflation, because people are going to have the opportunities to figure out where they want to work,” McGarry continued.
McGarry says the trend is visible in the U.S. and he expects to see it “spread to other regions”.
Meanwhile, one man’s finished product is another man’s raw material: the price of paint and coatings going up will add to raw material supply costs for companies like Stellantis, who is one of PPG’s biggest customers. This comes as other raw materials for automakers, like copper, aluminum and steel, are all rising in price as well.
PPG generates about 40% of its revenue in the U.S., Bloomberg notes. It has boosted pricing for 17 consecutive quarters and McGarry says the steak should continue through the rest of this year.
Everchem Updates Archive 
Sign Up for Email Updates