Category Archives: Supply Chain

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Jones Act Waiver Granted for Puerto Rico

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A request to temporarily waive the Jones Act for Puerto Rico that was denied on Monday has been approved. President Donald Trump waived shipping restrictions on Thursday to help speed up fuel and supply deliveries to Puerto Rico, devastated by Hurricane Maria, the White House said.
Maria wiped out power on the island and destroyed infrastructure and cell towers, leading to massive shortages. Even though a waiver had been granted to Texas and Florida after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the Department of Homeland Security initially said there was no need to waive the restriction for Puerto Rico, as it would not address the issue of the island’s damaged ports.

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The Jones Act, or the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, was initiated almost 100 years ago to keep foreign-flagged vessels from shipping fuel and goods between U.S. ports. The last previous waiver was in December 2012 to allow petroleum products to be delivered for relief assistance after Hurricane Sandy.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., disagreed with the initial decision to deny suspension of the act for Puerto Rico. He wrote to the Department of Homeland Security urging it to allow a waiver and ultimately “a full repeal of this archaic and burdensome act.

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” Without the waiver, McCain said residents of Puerto Rico would end up paying at least twice as much for food, drinking water and other supplies.

Supporters of the Jones Act, including ship builders, have maintained that it supports American jobs, including jobs in Puerto Rico and keeps shipping routes reliable, according to Reuters.

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They also contend that the issue in Puerto Rico is distributing shipments across the island once they are delivered.

The temporary waiver was not a surprise, as Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said on Wednesday that he expected the federal government to suspend the Jones Act. He said he had been speaking with members of Congress from both parties who supported an emergency waiver.

Hurricane Flooding Affecting Agricultural Supply Chains

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The trillions of gallons of water dumped by Hurricane Harvey on Texas and Louisiana and Hurricane Irma in Florida have created major problems for agricultural producers in these states. The damage is expected to affect supply chains in for businesses including grocery chains, restaurants and livestock ranches as massive rainfall and flooding have interrupted harvesting cycles for crops like wheat, rice, corn and citrus fruits.

Short-term economic losses are already being estimated, while concerns persist about the storm’s long-term effect on crops, soil and machinery.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service, Louisiana and Texas are respectively the third and fifth-largest rice producers in the United States. While Louisiana planted almost 400,000 acres of rice this year, LSU AgCenter extension rice specialist Dustin Harrell said a recent survey revealed that only about 10,000 acres of first-crop rice remains left for harvest in south Louisiana. “The big unknown at the moment is the ratoon rice in that area,” Harrell said.

Ratoon rice is a staple for many companies which grows from the remnants of what has already been harvested. “[It’s] very important economically and it, too, can be lost if the ratoon stubble remains submerged for several days.”

For Texas growers, some experts estimate that a substantial portion of their rice crop is completely unusable. “I estimate 80% of the Texas rice crop (170,000 acres) was cut before the storm hit and the remainder is totally lost. Rain normally makes grain, but this is so much more than rain,” said Dwight Roberts, president and CEO of the U.S. Rice Producers Association located in Houston. “[As of Aug. 29] it’s hard to really even know the condition of harvested rice. We’ve got broken communication, no electricity for some areas, and flooded storage in places. There are so many unknowns.”

In a statement issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Sept. 14, commissioner Scott Gottlieb acknowledged that rice harvested following Harvey faces risk of contamination. He said steps are being taken to prevent affected rice from being passed on to consumers or animals that could consume these crops, since broken grain can be used for pet food. He made particular mention of the Texas rice crop, saying that so far the agency had “not issued a ban on rice or any other food crops,” adding that rice grown in normal conditions and rice that has not been exposed to contaminated floodwaters may enter commerce. “Also, rice and other crops that were harvested and stored safely before storms hit should not be considered impacted by these events,” he said. 

The storms affected another key commodity: citrus fruits. The USDA ranks Florida and Texas as the respective first- and third-largest producers of oranges and grapefruits, and the storms took a bite out of their crops as well. Florida’s grapefruit harvest was already estimated to be the lowest in 50 years, with growers and experts expecting near-35% percent losses in the top-producing districts. According to USA Today, specific varieties of oranges like navel and Valencia might see a 25-to-35% loss.

“That puts every grower on the East Coast in red ink” for this year, said Andy Taylor, senior vice president and chief financial officer for the world’s largest grapefruit processer, Vero Beach-based Peace River Citrus Products Inc. “Efforts to salvage some of that and get it processed into juice,” however, are unlikely to save even 10% of the fruit dropped, Taylor added.

During his press conference, Gottlieb said the FDA has dispatched experts to work with state regulators and directly with producers to address questions and concerns about mold and other contaminants.

He also recognized the need to get boots on the ground in order to assess the quality of the crops, “or else crops that might be safe—because they were not exposed to contaminated floodwaters—could age past their point of use.”

The FDA distributed resource guides in reaction to the storms. For more general information on evaluating the safety of food and animal food crops exposed to flood waters, visit here. A QA on crops harvested from flooded fields intended for animal food can be found here.

Going Lo-Fi At Sea May Mitigate Cyberrisk

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Cyberthreats have become seaborne in recent years, and preventative measures are on the radars of governments and the shipping industry.

GPS and other electronic systems have proven to help ensure safe and accurate navigation, but they have also put digital bullseyes on ship decks. These technology upgrades have unwittingly exposed ships to cyberrisk because their signals are weak enough for remote perpetrators to jam.

When ships and crew members rely solely on GPS systems, they can be at the mercy of a cyberhacker seeking to provide wrong positions (or “spoof”), endanger the crew and their cargo, or hold the crew, cargo or sensitive information for ransom.

These risks are exacerbated by the fact that ships typically do not have automatic backup systems, and younger crew members are increasingly reliant upon the newer electronic navigation tools.

Allianz’s Safety and Shipping Review 2017 highlighted the growing threat of cybercrime in the sector, and noted the increasing level of activity in the last five years. For example, World Fuel Services fell victim to an online bunkering scam in 2014 when it agreed to participate in a tender for a large amount of fuel from what it believed to be the United States Defense Logistics Agency. Cybercriminals collected $18 million from that successful impersonation. In 2016, hundreds of South Korean vessels had to return to their ports after North Korea allegedly jammed their GPS signals.

The report noted that most maritime cyberattacks have been aimed at breaching corporate security, rather than taking control of vessels, but warned that such attacks could occur.

Captain Rahul Khanna, head of marine risk consulting at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, noted in the report that more, larger-scale attacks are imminent if the risks are not appropriately addressed. “We can’t put IT security on the backburner,” Khanna said. “Just imagine if hackers were able to take control of a large container ship on a strategically-important route. They could block transits for a long period of time, causing significant economic damage.”

The report also stressed that “crew education and identifying measures to back up and restore systems should be implemented” to reduce cyberrisk.

Looking Back For a Signal Forward
Some companies and governments have heeded the warnings and are identifying these indicators of attack. Preventative measures may lie in a maritime tool that had taken a backseat to the prevalence of GPS—a backup radio technology called Enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran), which was developed in the United States in the mid-1990s. It has continental reach, emits strong signals via a low-frequency and relies on land-based transmitters that reveal a limited number of fixed positions. These once-limiting traits could be the automatic backup systems ships need in the event of jamming or spoofing.

On July 20, 2017, when the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act (H.R. 2825) passed the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, eLoran’s importance was stressed. The act includes a section titled “Backup Global Positioning System,” which features provisions for the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to initiate an eLoran system. H.R. 2825 proposes that eLoran be made available as a “reliable…positioning, navigation and timing system,” with the purpose of providing “a complement to, and backup for the Global Positioning System to ensure availability of uncorrupted and nondegraded positioning, navigation and timing signals for military and civilian users.”

Reuters this week reported that South Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries is looking to establish the technology in a test form by 2019.

Time will tell if eLoran is the most practical and cost-efficient method to mitigate cyberthreats at sea. It seems if companies want to mitigate maritime cyberrisk now, the first steps would be to look to the technology of the past and turn on the radio.

Marsh Tracks Top Captive Trends

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The number of captive insurers continues to increase globally, from 5,000 in 2006 to more than 7,000 in 2016. Once formed primarily by large companies, the captive market has opened up to mid-size and small businesses. The industry is also seeing a trend in companies forming more than one captive, using them for cyber, political risk and other exposures, according to a recent Marsh report, Captives at the Core: The Foundation of a Risk Financing Strategy.

Organizations are seeing disruptions in a number of areas and are relying more on their existing captives, Marsh said. Because of their flexibility, captives are also being used to respond to market cycles and organizational changes such as mergers and acquisitions.

While North America and Europe still dominate in numbers of captives, other regions have shown more interest in the past three years. In Latin America, captive formation increased 11% in 2016, the study found.

Within the United States, there is more competition among domiciles and some of the newer domiciles are experiencing growth. The top-growing U.S. domiciles in 2016 were Texas, Connecticut, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee, and New York. Domiciles outside the U.S. seeing the most growth include Sweden, Guernsey, Singapore, Malta, and the Cayman Islands.
As organizations’ exposures increase in number, complexity and severity, shareholder funds generated by captives are becoming more important. According to Marsh:

For many clients, captives are at the core of their risk management strategy, going beyond the financing of traditional property/casualty risks.

Specifically, we are seeing an increase in parent companies using captive shareholder funds to underwrite an influx of new and non-traditional risks, including cyber, supply chain, employee benefits, and terrorism, as well as to develop analytics associated with these risks and fund other risk management initiatives.

Risk management projects funded by captive shareholder funds in 2016 included initiatives to determine capital efficiency and optimal risk retention levels in the form of risk-finance optimization; quantify cyber business-interruption exposures; accelerate the closure of legacy claims; and improve workforce and fleet safety/loss control policies.

For example, Marsh-managed captives used to address cyber liability increased by 19% from 2015 to 2016. Since 2012, in fact, cyber liability programs in captives have skyrocketed 210%.
“We expect to see a continued increase, driven in part by companies that are already strong captive users and by those that may have difficulty insuring their professional liability risks,” Marsh said.