On a good day, I am a poor golfer. I pull my head up too quickly and too much, obviously reeking havoc on my golf swing. But working in the practice dome can make it better. In Minnesota, we love to "work on our swings" over the winter indoors to get better, and the same is true in Zepol's cubicles, offices, meeting room, CoLo, and board room. Businesses that keep their heads down and eyes on the ball take better swings at new products, new customers, and new markets.

As easy as it sounds, it is incredibly difficult to do consistently. There are distractions or competitors around every corner, leading to your thoughts and efforts to lose steam. Growing, profitable companies see that keeping your focus on what's currently in the inbox gets things done. Good weeks turn into good months, and good months turn into great, profitable quarters. Clearly, we need to check out the landscape occasionally, but at the end of the day, resources need to be in the here and now.

Zepol's head will be down and eye firmly planted on the ball in 2011. We look forward to adding a slew of new enhancements and updates this year. I hope the same is true for your business. Best of luck in 2011!

On January 9th, we completed the data for December in our U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ. Total shipments in December fell by 8.48% from November, and grew 3.68% over the previous year. Shipments to West Coast ports showed the greatest decrease of 11.50% while the East Coast dropped 5.05% and the Gulf's traffic grew 3.16% from November.

Below is a table showing port regions of the world where shipments originated:

When looking at all of 2010, shipments were up 14.19% over 2009. However, taking a larger view of the data, 2008 still eclipsed 2010 by 0.82%. 2010 will be remembered for a return to normalcy in the container shipping industry as retailers regained confidence in consumers and manufacturers finally began to ramp back up production. Both of these factors pushed imports back toward prerecession levels. Container ports in the United States welcomed these developments, but some have fared better in the recovery than others. Below is a trend of the top 5 U.S. ports' TEU totals over the last 5 years:

Methodology:

Zepol's data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne containerized goods. This is the earliest indicator for trade data available for the previous month’s import activity. The data excludes shipments from empty containers, excludes shipments labeled as freight remaining on board, and may contain other data anomalies.

Zepol has created a report detailing export trends for 29 major U.S. industry groups from January through October 2010. The report analyzes export information for each 3-digit NAICS code (North American Industry Classification System) and provides insights into recent export trends as well as sheds light upon potential future developments.

4 Key Insights Found in the Report:

1. Canada and Mexico receive the highest value of exports from the United States, with $200 and $129 billion respectively from January through October 2010.
   
2. All industry groups analyzed in the review posted positive value growth over last year; the average value growth was 23.48%.
3. Hit severely by the recession, Mineral and Ore exports have recovered well in 2010 and post the highest value change over last year with a 61.51% increase.
4. China is the third largest importer of U.S. exports; top products include soybeans, aircraft, and aluminum scrap.

To download the report, please click this link.

Zepol is pleased to provide this report for free with registration and hope that the information is helpful in better understanding your market. Please let us know if you have any questions about the contents of our report by filling out our Contact Me form.

U.S. pipe makers were pleased with the recent strict penalties that were imposed upon Chinese made drill pipes for oil drilling. The Commerce Department will raise penalties and impose a nearly 20 percent tariff on imports. The ruling concluded that China was unfairly subsidizing the steel industry and therefore selling the products below market value, causing U.S. companies a painful price disadvantage.

Executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, Scott Paul, stated, “Our manufacturing sector alone has lost 5.5 million jobs in just the last decade – with 2.4 million lost or displaced as a direct result of our massive trade deficit with China. We risk losing our competitive edge as a nation unless strong enforcement of our trade laws occurs when cheating exists.” The ruling will slow down imports from China and help domestic producers become more competitive.

The graph below shows a two year trend of imports for drill and line pipe used for gas and oil drilling. Imports from China have dropped significantly in the last year and will likely remain low in the future with the increased tariffs. Even though imports from China have decreased, imports from other countries like Argentina and Czech Republic have shown increases over last year. On the downside, a decrease in imports of the lower priced products will drive the price tags up for the domestically produced pipes. Many in the pipe manufacturing business, however, seem to think the benefits outweigh the costs.